Bullied boy at Chattanooga’s Hunter Middle School speaks up for other victims

Hunter Middle School is located off of Hunter Road in Ooltewah, Tenn. Staff file photo

First Drew Herrmann felt anger, then shame. Now, after a traumatizing bullying episode at Hunter Middle School in September, he’s simply afraid.

The shy, blue-eyed 13-year-old hides behind long brown hair as he talks. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but if telling the story again protects him, then he will.

On Sept. 23, Herrmann was one of at least four students held down in the locker room by four other boys and beaten with a belt while another student took video on a cellphonelike recorder.

It happened as the boys were changing clothes to start morning physical education class, he said. It happened again as the boys changed at the end of the class.

Neither time was a teacher present.