I know I'm waaaay late on this, but I kind of wanted to say a couple of things.
Personally, I don't think the kid should have backed down. It was his characters ring. I've been gaming for a long time, and my bard would have stabbed the wizard in the back of the skull.
I think it's funny, what happened to the one guy. He sounds (from this one-sided bit) that the guy was a jerk, and it sounds like he was used to bullying people to get what he wanted. A 20-25 jail term.
I've got a 15 year old playing (He's good too) and I had a new player come in. The kid was playing a 6th level Shtar Blackguard (Blackguard became a core class to take over the position of the Anti-Paladin when we switched from 2E to 3E) and he had a collapsable combat lance.
A guy joined up, played a rogue, the blackguard was hit by a trap the rogue should have found and didn't, and the blackguard threw the rogue into the pit. (This was CHARACTER interaction, not personal)
So this guy wrote up a fighter and took exotic weapon proficeincy: Collapsable COmbat Lance.
Then demanded the Blackguards lance for restitution for the blackguard killing his character.
When he began getting bullying about it, after the kid told him no repeatedly, we backed the kid up.
When he saw he couldn't play like that, he settled down. Now we kind of have harmony in the group.
My point? Oh, yeah, my point: Why didn't the rest of you back the kid against the guy? From what I've read, the kid plays better than the other guy, hell with age. I'll take the kid over the jailbird in my group any time.
Glad to see that everything somewhat worked out, Bob, and hope the kid gets off of grounding sometime soon.