Tormented Bus Aide On NBC's Today: "I want the boys punished"

(WBEN/AP) Bullied Rochester-area bus aide Karen Klein told a national audience Thursday that she wants to see some sort of discipline given the middle school students who tormented and mocked her, during ten minutes of abuse that became viral online video.

The incident was captured in a 10-minute cellphone video recorded by one of the students and posted to YouTube. It shows 68-year-old Karen Klein trying her best to ignore the stream of profanity, insults and outright threats directed at her. At one point in the video, she breaks down in tears.

Klein told the NBC Today show that she hopes their parents will view the viral video of the attack and talk to their children about being "a little more respectful."

By early Wednesday, the video had gone viral, and by Thursday morning, it had been viewed more than 1.5 million times on YouTube.

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Klein told "Today" that it took "a lot of willpower" not to respond to Monday's jeers from at least four seventh- and eighth-grade boys riding the bus operated by the Greece Central School District, a suburban Rochester district that's the ninth largest in the state.

"I'm not usually that calm. Just ask my kids," Klein said during the interview.

"I'm sure they don't act that way at home, but you never know what they're going to do when they're out of the house," she said.

Outrage over Klein's treatment on the bus led to an outpouring of support. The international crowd funding site Indiegogo.com had raised more than $124,000 by Thursday to send the grandmother of eight on a vacation.

VIDEO of KAREN KLEIN on NBC's TODAY SHOW

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Earlier Klein shared a few of her thoughts with a Rochester area television station

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