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Amazing that this even became a story, IMHO, and now it's in the public domain and people will continue to say remember that boy that was kicked for 5 minutes and then killed himself?
Sad that he committed suicide - but the notion that he was beaten (beyond a simple shove) is false.
What are you talking about? You can clearly see a kid with a dark red vest jacket leap at the boy as the red vest kid walks in to the bathroom. Then they are off camera, then back on camera with red vest in the corner, and the boy standing in front of him. The boy seems to touch red vest's hand, and next thing you know, he's down on the ground.
If 'no one' bullied him, why did it take several minutes before the first adult showed up?
I'd be talking to red vest kid. And I'd also like to know why it took so long for the first adult to show up. That boy was lying on the floor for several minutes while others went around him "nudging" him like he was some specimen instead of a human being in need of help.
What are you talking about? You can clearly see a kid with a dark red vest jacket leap at the boy as the red vest kid walks in to the bathroom. Then they are off camera, then back on camera with red vest in the corner, and the boy standing in front of him. The boy seems to touch red vest's hand, and next thing you know, he's down on the ground.
If 'no one' bullied him, why did it take several minutes before the first adult showed up?
I'd be talking to red vest kid. And I'd also like to know why it took so long for the first adult to show up. That boy was lying on the floor for several minutes while others went around him "nudging" him like he was some specimen instead of a human being in need of help.
All of those kids need to be questioned.
Yeah I went back through the thread to see if there was another video I had missed that has so many poster convinced there was no bullying. The only clip I have seen clearly shows a confrontation. The news story I saw had his mother saying he had a broken nose and split lip. It was not conclusive but it sure looked like there was bullying going on to me, am I missing something?
The difficult thing with any of these school-related incidents is that we are only skimming the surface on information. All the information is provided by the parents and the media who are not bound by confidentiality. The detective's comment seems a little unprofessional on top of that.
As an administrator, I investigate a lot of "incidents" throughout the day. I keep an open mind until all the facts are in and try not to jump to conclusions. It seems as if the school incident is related to the suicide, but has that been proven? The suicide happened at home under the supervision of the parents. Is there abuse at home that would have played a factor and someone is looking for a scapegoat? There is no mention of a note left by the child, so we are guessing as to all the factors leading up the suicide.
At this point, all we know is that a tragedy has occurred. The easy way out is finding a scapegoat and then making ridiculous comments about what we would do to those "responsible" for this.
Administrators do not view cameras at all times and have many cameras that cover a school. Even finding an incident on a camera can take quite a bit of time and most of the time you only get a partial image or a blurry one at best. My guess is that someone found the student unconscious and assumed it was medical. When the administrator first heard about it, they probably heard someone had passed out, but someone was taking him to the nurse and the nurse had called the parent. Therefore, I'm assuming the administrator did not investigate this as a disciplinary issue.
The school recommended that the parent take the child to the hospital. It seems the parent disregarded this advice and just took him home. The child reported that his stomach hurt and he didn't know what happened. If a student told the school he didn't know what happened, his stomach hurt, and the first report from someone is that he "fainted", then I can see how an administrator would see this as a medical issue rather than disciplinary. The hospital reported that he was suffering from the stomach flu, not an attack from fellow students or bullying. I would assume this is after interviewing the child. These are medical professionals that would be better trained in suicide prevention than school personnel.
If school staff believe a student has suicidal tendencies, however small, they turn this over to medical professionals. I know that we require a doctor to release that student back to us after a psychological evaluation.
In my opinion, the school failed to identify this as a physical attack rather than a medical issue. However, I would hold the school, the parents, and the hospital all responsible for this suicide. The parents sent the child to school again 2 days after the restroom incident and the child was under their care when he committed this act. They also failed to take the child to the hospital immediately as recommended by school staff or identify suicidal tendencies in their child. The hospital released a child with suicidal tendencies to return back to school and failed to identify the attack, diagnosing the main issue as the stomach flu. The school failed to identify this as a disciplinary issue rather than medical and, it seems, failed to identify suicidal tendencies in this child.
My guess is that the child suffers from some kind of mental health issue in addition, which makes these cases very difficult. Unfortunately, many people dropped the ball in this kid's life and that is hard to face. It's easier to set up a scarecrow to fight and a common one is public education.
Agreed. Too often parents want to blame the school for everything. The school is not at fault for everything just because they are physically there. They cannot possibly prevent each and every problem that occurs with every child and they cannot singlehandedly make every child an A student, free from any personal problems. A child's success in school takes cooperation between the school, parents, and others.
It is very rare for children that young to commit suicide. The bullying may have had little to do with it. Many times, people want to find someone responsible when something bad happens to one they love. There could have been a secret personal problem going on in the little boy's life that caused him to do this. Or he could have been mentally ill and the mother didn't want to disclose it. Who failed this child? It's impossible to know from just this article. It might have just been one of those terrible tragedies, and the parents and school thought they were doing the right thing.
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Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow
What are you talking about? You can clearly see a kid with a dark red vest jacket leap at the boy as the red vest kid walks in to the bathroom. Then they are off camera, then back on camera with red vest in the corner, and the boy standing in front of him. The boy seems to touch red vest's hand, and next thing you know, he's down on the ground.
If 'no one' bullied him, why did it take several minutes before the first adult showed up?
I'd be talking to red vest kid. And I'd also like to know why it took so long for the first adult to show up. That boy was lying on the floor for several minutes while others went around him "nudging" him like he was some specimen instead of a human being in need of help.
All of those kids need to be questioned.
That interaction was the "shove" I referred to in my post. I might be wrong, but I've watched that clip several times and can't tell exactly what happened - some of it appears to happen around the corner. At any rate, it's VERY quick. Best guess, the kid in the red jacket shoved the boy, and he fell back and hit his head on the floor. When the male teacher arrives to investigate, he has to remove a garbage can that the boy apparently fell behind.
This thing - whatever it was, a shove, a punch, happened within two seconds.
So I wouldn't characterize it as 5 minutes of beating and kicking a child who is already unconscious, as the parents described. I would characterize it as a shove that caused him to lose balance and fall and hit his head, knocking him unconscious.
I guess I don't understand the bolded comment. How does the length of time between the shoving and an adult arriving mean there was bullying going on? From what I can tell this school is in a fairly bad part of town, and the kids would be somewhat desensitized to seeing someone lying around semi-conscious in public. They all do stop and investigate quickly, and then continue to use the restroom, and apparently several kids did report it as evidenced by several adults showing up. It's hard to think his face was bleeding - rather, he looked like a kid asleep in the corner of the bathroom, I would guess.
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Originally Posted by bwisita
Sherlock Holmes-ing the video which I paused and watched intently. I deduced that the bully has this shock gag:
I myself don't want to try it when I saw it in a store coz I don't fancy getting electrocuted. So ya, I agree, the poor kid may have a medical condition.
Did you actually see this thing in the video? I agree, that would make sense, although it seems a bit far-fetched. It seems that by now the school would know the boy had that shocking gag thing.
That would explain what appears to me - the one boy in the red jacket touches the child, and he goes down and is unconscious. I'm not seeing a violent struggle at all - just a light shove.
It does seem far-fetched, though, unless you can see something or have further information. I've seen things similar to that - gag trick pens that you click and they shock you, shocking lighters, etc.
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This chicago tribune article indicates he didn't know what had happened to him in the restroom, which is to be expected with a head injury that causes unconsciousness.
He didn't know, and no one really knew until after he had killed himself that he had been shoved in the restroom (or whatever it was that happened).
So it seems highly unlikely that was the cause of his suicide.
Is it possible he didn't intend to die? That he was doing something else, and somehow this happened? I don't know what that would be. . .
That interaction was the "shove" I referred to in my post. I might be wrong, but I've watched that clip several times and can't tell exactly what happened - some of it appears to happen around the corner. At any rate, it's VERY quick. Best guess, the kid in the red jacket shoved the boy, and he fell back and hit his head on the floor. When the male teacher arrives to investigate, he has to remove a garbage can that the boy apparently fell behind.
This thing - whatever it was, a shove, a punch, happened within two seconds.
So I wouldn't characterize it as 5 minutes of beating and kicking a child who is already unconscious, as the parents described. I would characterize it as a shove that caused him to lose balance and fall and hit his head, knocking him unconscious.
I guess I don't understand the bolded comment. How does the length of time between the shoving and an adult arriving mean there was bullying going on? From what I can tell this school is in a fairly bad part of town, and the kids would be somewhat desensitized to seeing someone lying around semi-conscious in public. They all do stop and investigate quickly, and then continue to use the restroom, and apparently several kids did report it as evidenced by several adults showing up. It's hard to think his face was bleeding - rather, he looked like a kid asleep in the corner of the bathroom, I would guess.
We've gotten awfully lax about defining bullying. Personally, as a kid who was bullied by one kid in elementary school and another kid in junior high, I always thought of bullying as something somewhat long term. Short one-time actions are something different...to me. Still unacceptable, just not what I think of as bullying.
And here, we don't know if the kid who shoved was bullying (by my definition) or if it was a one-time incident.
Would you volunteer knowing that you might very well be accused of being a voyeur? Because I will tell you that I have seen that accusation against teachers more than once simply because they believe in significant supervision of bathrooms.
People are crazy these days. You really can't win. I see where the fear is coming from, but people can't have it both ways. You can't ensure there will be no bullying in the bathrooms to prevent suicides if you don't have people making frequent checks of the bathrooms because you also complain that the idea of an adult going into a kids' bathroom too often is creepy.
I still can't believe that an 8 year old committed suicide. There has got to be more to this story; it just doesn't make sense otherwise. A lot of people failed this kid here, including his own parents. Yes, they are grieving, but their 8 year old hanged himself. Something's very seriously wrong there.
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