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e For Ryan Cushing, a compassionate second chance What does the future hold for 19-year-old Ryan Cushing? Last November, when in an act of startling viciousness he threw a 20-pound frozen turkey through the windshield of a car driven by Victoria Ruvolo, criti- cally injuring her, it looked like possibly 25 years in prison. Cushing's criminal recklessness broke every bone in Ms. Ruvolo's face and caused brain injuries. A horrified public clamored for severe punishment. Last week, after an extraordinary gift of compassion by Ms. Ruvolo, Cushing's future is a mere six months in the county jail - and an opportunity to redeem his life. Ms. Ruvolo spent five months in St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson, initially in a coma, mostly in pain. She still has pain today. During her long convalescence and rehabilitation she examined her feelings about Cushing and what he had done to her, and concluded there was no room in her heart for vengeance. After Cushing pleaded guilty in August, she asked the district attorney and the court to use compassion in sentencing him. Remarkably, she said she did not want his life destroyed by a long prison sentence, though her own had nearly been taken at his hands. So last week in County Court in Riverhead, a pen- tent Cushing turned to Ms. Ruvolo and read from a pre- pared statement, thanking her for interceding with District Attomey Thomas Spota and prosecutors on his behalf. He said her display of compassion has had a pro- found effect on his life. Moments later, Judge Barbara Kahn told Cushing, ''You're being given an extraordinary gift,\ and sen- tenced him to six months jail time and five years' proba- tion. There was an extraordinary scene in court two months ago, when Cushing pleaded guilty. Ms. Ruvolo, saying there was no room in her for vengeance, acknowledged his remorse and embraced him, while Cushing, apologizing, sobbed abjectly on her shoulder. Courtroom cynics, accustomed to cries for revenge and harsh punishment on the part of victims and their fami- lies, were astonished. In her statement last week, Ms. Ruvolo told Cushing, \I truly hope that by demonstrating compassion and teniency, I have encouraged you to seek an honorable life.\ These are beautiful words, spoken from the heart's kindness. Reading them, you think of the priest in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, who tells the police who charged Jean Valjean with stealing silver candlesticks from the church that they were a gift. When Jean is reluctantly released, the priest tells him. \I have redeemed you. Now go and do good.\ And that is the hope of those who clamored for severe punishment for Cushing and the four teenagers with him that night. Cushing. who threw the turkey. alone gets fail time. The others., who stole a credit card and went on a shopping spree that included the fateful poultry, also pleaded guilty and were given five years probation. If the public can't have the severe punishment so many wanted, then we must have redemption. We do not want Victoria Ruvolo's compassion abused. We want the knowledge that from a cnminal act that nearly took a woman's life, a priceless lesson has been learned. We want to know that henceforth Ryan Cushing and the others, so destructive in their heartlessness, will indeed, in Ms. Ruvolo's words. seek honorable lives. Signals We want the knowledge that from a criminal act that nearly took a woman's life, a priceless lesson has been learned. BY JOHN MCKINNEY To that end. you can bet that newsroom data bases everywhere have been red flagged with Ryan Cushing's name. You can bet the public will want to know if on some future day he gets even so much as a parking tick et Ms Ruvolo and the district attorney gave him bach his life, in exchange. we demand that he spend his future days with honor \Ryan.\ Ms. Ruvolo said to him in court last week, \prove me night ~ It was Ms. Ruvolo who spared Cushing severe pun iwshment. Thnilled and amazed by her forgiving heart. the public stood behind her decision If after what she endured she stull wished to request lemency. we could only agree. So, Ryan, you owe a debt to all of us Do your jail ume, and then go and do good. Tackling the ramifications of bullying at the onset When I was in sixth grade, I was regularly picked on by another girl, who also happened to live in the same apartment building as my family. Since we both walked up the block from school to get home, she had ample opportunity to pinch my arm or pull on my clothing until something ripped. In those days, girls often wore self-belted dresses with half a belt attached at either side of the waist that was tied in a bow in the back. Many times, I would afrive home - | with a large hole where one half of the belt had been. My mother became increasingly annoyed at what she per- ceived as my lack of care about my clothing, and I was embarrassed to tell her what was really happening. Finally I did confess, was urged to \smack her back,\ worked myself up to the point where I did so, and she stopped. Despite my size (I was the tallest girl in the class), 1 was the victim of a bully. Routinely E saw boys bully the same victim in the schoolyard. Somehow we were brainwashed that we ing. and that silence permitted the cruelties to thrive. In junior high school, which drew its students from all ity of New York, there was another sort of bul- lying, a culture of meanness. There was a clique of \pop- ular\ girls - gitls who came from the same neighbor- hood on Manhattan's West Side and had been together all their lives. They were more sophisticated than the rest of us, set the dress code and laughed a lot about secret things. They rarely talked to anyone else in the class unless it was to taunt us about our mismatched clothes -- they wounded with words - or if they needed something (one of the group would privately beg me to translate the Between you and me m [BJullying is no longer regarded by the adult world benignly as a 'natural part of growing up.' Latin assignment for her, and another regularly asked my help with arithmetic). Those requests gave me great satis- faction, although I never let on. The rest of the time, 1 My oldest son, who was also the tallest in his class and conspicuously nice, was picked on by bulhes in seventh grade. One day, he was actually assaulted while he was nding his bike home from school. \Boys will be boys. we were assured. We sent him for judo lessons. and he quickly got the hang of defending himself. His guidance counselor also got involved, calling the boys into his office together and individually. The bullying stopped, but it was a bitter experience. Today, bullies use the Internet, tormenting classmates anonymously. But now, after the 1999 Columbine school shootings and the 2003 hazing incident involving the Mepham High football team,. bullying i~ no longer regarded by the adult world benignly as a natural part of growing up.\ I was delighted to read the lead story in the October 16 issue of The Long Island Section of The New York Times, which dealt with organized response against bullying. In Roslyn. for example, there is a nonprofit group called Child Abuse Protection Services that creates student-tar- geted programs to combat peer harassment According to a survey conducted by this group. \83 percent of sixth and seventh graders on the Island sard their school had a bul- lying problem,. 45 percent said it was «significant or severe\ There have been concerted attempts to deal with the problem. Recently. the Island's first conference of bullying in cyberspace was held at Stony Brook University it attract ed 500 students, teachers and administrators Volunteer trained in anti-bullying programs have given workshops in more than 200 schools on the Island One such pro- gram is a three-session. \Steer Clear of Bullies,\ in which fourth and fifth graders are taught empathy. social skills and assertiveness. Another is \Step Up & Speak Out.\ teaching seventh and eighth graders to understand and respond to bullying The best part of all this, as far as I'm concemed. is putting values in the right place. Kids are encouraged to speak up when they see something mean or unjust or «im- ply wrong happening. Imagine if we all had learned to do that as children and had raised our children the same way Perhaps then incidents like Columbine and Mepham could have been more readily averted. TIMES BEACON RECORD sofon Ati Pususeer \Over tam hove .* L#t. - Leah S. Dunasief Katherime Consorte my? Lois fiovic ~ ; I GENERAL MANAGER Joshua Diamant David Sama Robin Lemkin NEWSPAPERS Johness Kuisel Camite DiLieto W ART DIRECTOR Diane m ' Anthony Frasca Linds Tet Elizabe er We welcome letters, photographs, comments and story EXECUTIVE EDITOR Robert Leuner ART moo PRODUCTION Laura Satchwil) ideas. Send your stems to PO Box 707, Setauket, NY Marie Murtagh Peter C. Mastrosimonie Renee Aiboreli Lynn Tunney 11733 or email to tinesnpt@tbmewspapers.com. Or drop by EDITOR Charles Morgan Vincent Campagna CLASSIFIEDS Rector our news office at 67 Mais Street, Northport. The opinions Patricia Proven Kathy O'Sullivan Janet Fortuna Ellen Segal of our colummisis are mot mecessarily those of the paper. LEISURE EDITOR Pmm Karen Glick BUSINESS MANAGER Times Beacon Record Newspapers are published Elen Barcei Wm Beth Hellier-Mason Mary Fiorentino every Thursday. j PRODUCTION EDITOR Laura Arve Marie Hewitt CIRCULATION MANAGER Address: PO Box 707. Scn‘im.w 11733. Alyssa Cutler JohnWestermann Karen Pack Diane Wattecamps Telephone: (631) 751-7744 | Web « timesofnorthport.com SPORTS EDITOR PHOTOGRAPHY ADVERTISING DIRECTOR BUSINESS OFFICE Comtents copyright 2005. 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