9 Teens Charged in Bullying that Led to Girl's Suicide
A 15 year old girl was found hanging in her apartment building in Massachusetts in January after months and months of verbal and physical abuse from her classmates. District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel told reporters, “The investigation revealed relentless activity directed toward Phoebe designed to humiliate her.”
15 years old. I can’t even put the words together right now.
When did kids become so horrible? This goes far beyond any sort of childhood bullying I have ever heard of or encountered. These ruthless teenagers threw bottles at her, knocked her books out of her hand, used words even I find to vile to say as an adult against her, and that’s just what they’ve released to the press. This all took place on school grounds, sometimes in front of faculty and staff, and nothing was done.
And now a 15 year old innocent girl is dead. And all I can do is sit here and wonder why?
I want to know where these kids learned to be so nasty. And where are you, parents? I know, you’ll say it’s easy for me to judge because I don’t have a child. But this is just absurd. If you don’t know what your child is doing, you’re not doing your job as a parent. I know I’ll get some flack for that, but if you’re defaulting that there’s no way you can know what your child is doing at all times then you need to step up your game. Nine students are being charged for the bullying that lead to this girl’s death. That’s nine kids, with nine sets of parents or guardians, who should have taught them better. When exactly did your kids become such monsters? Those nine students were just that, monsters. Monsters that spent their time and energy every day to physically and mentally beat down one girl. And I hope they go to jail, because if they are this hateful at 15-17 and get away with it, imagine what kind of demented adults they will be. I don’t expect parents to know every minute of what their child does, but they should have been raised better. There’s no excuse for any of these children to think that this kind of behavior was now, or ever, acceptable.
Okay, so the parents can’t hold their child’s hand during school hours and know exactly what they’re doing. Where the hell were school officials on this? From the CNN.com report:
“Though initial news reports blamed [Phoebe] Prince's suicide on cyberbullying, Scheibel said the students' actions were "primarily conducted on school grounds during school hours and while school was in session." She said any use of electronic social networks was secondary to "commonly understood bullying methods." The bullying of Prince was common knowledge to most of the student body and to certain faculty, staff and administrators, Scheibel said. At least four students and two faculty members had intervened during the harassment, but the school's code of conduct was inconsistently enforced, she said. Though the faculty, staff and administrators' behavior was not deemed criminal, "the actions, or inactions, of some adults at the school are troublesome," she said.”
There’s just no excuse. No excuse. Parents can’t be at school walking the halls with their kids, but there are enough faculty and staff walking the halls to see this in action. Where were they to stop this? Only two faculty members ever stepped in? According to the Public School Review, there are 55 teachers and 721 students at South Hadley High School where this incident took place. That’s only 13 students to each teacher. And that’s only teachers, not including other support staff members such as hall monitors and janitors, or Administrators. Now, please tell me there aren’t enough employees at the school to see this kind of bullying happening. It is required by law that parents send their students to school (if they aren’t home schooled). If you have to send them to a school, shouldn’t they be safe?
Is it going to take another kid bringing a gun to school to make people wake up?
Schools should be operating on a proactive basis, not a reactive basis. Why does it take death to make people open their eyes?
The nine students, monsters as I will affectionately call them from now on, are facing an array of charges, from violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly, and statutory rape. The statutory rape charge can carry a life sentence. I hope every single one of those monsters is charged with the crimes they are accused of. Not only to give justice to this poor tormented girl, but to send a message to them and others. Nothing is learned if the monsters get away with their crimes.
Please go to The National Center for Bullying Prevention and STOP Cyberbullying to learn what you can do to help your children and prevent more unnecessary deaths.
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I have 4th & 5th graders on my school bus who say awful things to one another. Mean bullying things. I put a stop to it when i hear it. They look at me as if to say "What?" nothing wrong with what i am saying. We had a student who hung himself a year or two ago, rumors where...bullying. I don't know what the answer is, it would be nice if administrators would take this seriously.
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