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Judge sees increase of student on student assault cases; says parents need to be held accountable

"My message to the parents and students is I'm not going to tolerate this. They are coming to court and suffer the consequences," said Judge Joe Benavides.

Student fights, truancy and cases of violence seem to be trending in the wrong direction, according to a local judge especially at local middle schools.

Judge Joe Benavides said the solution might just be to start holding parents accountable in court.

It's a disturbing trend, local officials are seeing an increase of student fights in our schools and videos of those altercations are being posted online.

The latest incidents involving students at both Hamlin Middle School and Grant Middle School.

"This is it, stacks and stacks of cases, charges of fighting in school," said Justice of the Peace Joe Benavides as he showed 3News the files on his desk.

Judge Benavides said many of those videos are entered as evidence on the cases and they are happening at a rate he has never seen before especially at the middle school level.

"As of now we have 81 charges of disorderly conduct, a majority are female students," said Judge Joe Benavides JP1-1, Nueces County.

He believes social media is a big part of the reason.

"My message to the parents and students is I'm not going to tolerate this.  They are coming to court, and suffer the consequences," said Benavides.

Those consequences can include community service and fines up to 500 dollars.  For older students, they could even face restrictions on trying to get their driver's license, but he said that's not enough to curb the problem.

"The bottom line is the parents are accountable for their children," said Benavides.

The judge, who works with CCISD, Calallen ISD, Tuloso Midway ISD, and West Oso ISD doesn't believe bullying and fighting is the answer to what kids are going through.

He talks to students about it through a program called 'Cloud of Turbulence'.

"And it deals with how to stay away from drugs gangs report bullying," said Benavides.  "It's pretty much out of control.  It could be peer pressure, it could be gangs, drugs.  The sad thing about it, when you start seeing bullying and fighting it keeps kids away from school then we have truancy."

He is now looking at ways to take action against the parents too.

"I'm going to get advice from the district attorney on all these types of offenses," said Benavides. "These parents have to someway reach out and say you are going to school to learn."

He encourages folks to talk to their children because when the problem ends up in his court, "I do as much as I can to inform the parents and students it's not going to be tolerated."

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