Another One: Gabriel Taye

Gabriel Taye was just eight-years-old; he was just using the bathroom at his school, Carson Elementary, near Cincinnati, when he, according to the school, fainted.

Several minutes later, assistant principal Jeff McKenzie found Gabe unconscious on the floor and took him to the school nurse, who called Gabe’s mother, Cornelia Reynolds, to say Gabe had fainted and asked her to come pick him up.

At home, when Gabe began to vomit, Reynolds took him to the hospital. He stayed home from school for a day, but returned to Carson the following day; after school that day, he came home and hanged himself using his necktie.

After Gabe’s suicide, Cincinnati homicide detective Eric Karaguleff began to investigate and what he saw on a school surveillance video horrified him enough to write to the principal and assistant principal at Carson Elementary, and to Child Protective Services, saying he was alarmed at what took place:

“I saw some concerning events, and I don’t even have a child at that school.”

In the video, Karaguleff saw a young boy with “with dyed hair sorta O’Dell Beckham Jr. style,” enter the restroom; instantly several other kids ran out, but the boy with the dyed hair stopped one kid and punched him so hard in the stomach that the boy fell down on all fours.

“I witnessed behavior that in my belief is bullying and could even rise to the level of criminal assault.”

A few minutes later, Gabe entered the restroom and appeared to try and shake the hand of the boy with the dyed hair, perhaps in an attempt to get him to stop bullying the child on the floor.

But the bully slammed Gabe so hard against the wall that he fell unconscious to the floor, which is when, according to Karaguleff, the bully seemed to “celebrate and rejoice in his behavior” as Gabe lay motionless.

Several other young boys came into the restroom and took turns kicking Gabe, still unconscious, while other boys just step over his body like he was garbage. Others stop and stare at Gabe, poking him; this goes on for about five minutes until an adult enters the bathroom. Then at least three other adults come in and look at Gabe; some kneel down to get closer to him.

Eventually, Gabe is able to stand up and leave with one adult, assistant principal Jeff McKenzie.

According to the boy’s family lawyer, Jennifer Branch, the school told Cornelia Reynolds that her son had fainted; there was no mention of the attack in the bathroom. But school officials maintain that the nurse told Reynolds to take Gabe to the hospital, though she says they never mentioned it.

 “If the school had told her what had happened to him in the bathroom, that he was unconscious for such a long period of time, she would have taken him to the hospital immediately, reported that to the medical professionals, and she would have the called police.”—Jennifer Branch

And now, the Cincinnati Public Schools superintendent has announced that, after an investigation by the district, no linkage had been found between Gabriel’s death and bullying.

No link; what about the video? What about him being slammed against a wall? What about him being kicked and poked while he lay unconscious on the ground?

Well, the district maintains that the jerky quality of the video makes it hard to tell exactly what happened in that bathroom, but 8-year-olds don’t kill themselves for no reason.

And now, because of Detective Karaguleff’s investigation, Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco is reopening the investigation. When she first learned of Taye's death she was shocked that an 8-year-old would commit suicide and, at first, asked for his death to be investigated as a homicide. But the autopsy report concluded that Taye died from asphyxiation and the manner of death was, in fact, suicide.

"It was very hard for me to believe that an 8-year-old would even know what it means to commit suicide and so I asked Cincinnati police to treat this as a homicide until proven otherwise and investigate it fully."— Lakshmi Sammarco

I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here; a police detective sees a video with a boy, with dyed hair, beating up at least two other boys, one of whom falls unconscious to the floor, and yet the school district says the video evidence is inconclusive?

And why does an eight-year-old boy kill himself for apparently no reason? I mean, if Gabe wasn’t beaten in that bathroom, and if he wasn’t bullied at school upon his return, why take his own life?

The school, and the district need to be held accountable; if only for the fact that Gabe Taye—if there was no beating by the boy with the dyed hair, and how easy must it be to find that kid—collapsed, either from a beating or from a sudden fainting spell, in a bathroom, and several other boys kicked him while he was down.

Part of the school’s job is to protect these kids while they are in their care, and this school didn’t do that; they apparently looked the other way. And with this video evidence it just seems like the school is as responsible as those boys in Gabe Taye’s death.

He was just an eight-year-old kid using a bathroom.

CNN

The Root

Crime Online

On This Date In ISBL History: ... And Again ... Brandon Bitner

As I am in Oregon helping my Dad recuperate from knee surgery, I thought I’d do something I’ll call “On This Date In ISBL History” and repost some things from back when the blog was new, and newish … this was originally published November 9, 2010:

Brandon Bitner was tortured at school because he was different. He was what many call "emo" and he wore his hair dark and in his eyes; he wore the requisite dark clothes. He played the violin. His bullies assumed he was gay. 

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was just a different kid in dark clothes who loved to play the violin. 
Now he's dead. 

Brandon Bitner left a suicide note in his house, then walked 13 miles down a darkened highway until finally deciding to run in front of a tractor-trailer. 

I can only begin to imagine what went through his mind on that long walk in the middle of the night. Was he thinking, hoping, wishing, and praying that it would get better? 

Earlier in the week, at Midd-West High School, where Brandon Bitner was a freshman, there was an anti-bullying assembly. It wasn't held in response to any specific incident, but because the principal felt it was an issue that should be addressed. 

Most students at school recall the assembly being treated as a joke. Bullying is fun for warped little minds with low self-esteem and too much time on their hands. 

But, and this is where I get even more angry, many of Brandon Bitner's friends knew he was being bullied because of his perceived sexual orientation, the way he dressed, his love of the violin. And they spoke out against the bullying … after Brandon Bitner ran in front of that truck. I would have hoped they'd spoken up before Brandon Bitner died.

We all need to speak up.

If we are friends with someone who is being taunted and tortured by classmates, by strangers, by their family, it is our duty to speak up.

If we see it happening on the street we need to speak up.

If it's happening to us we need to speak up. 

See, bullies live in the darkness and bully from the shadows, but with voices we can shine a light on them and they'll scamper away like rats. 

We need to speak up. Before another Brandon Bitner talks a walk in the middle of the night and never comes home.

There really is no update as Brandon is still dead … as are the other young people in the other forty-plus posts on this blog who killed themselves because they were bullied.

We don’t hear about it as much as we did in years past but it’s still happening.

Speak.Up.

Another One: Alyssa Morgan

Alyssa Morgan killed herself last month; she was 12 years old.

Now her mother, Nicole, is telling Alyssa’s story and how the administrators and teachers at her school, Southeast Polk Junior High, failed to protect from the bullies who drive Alyssa to suicide.

Nicole says that at home, her daughter was like any 12-year-old; she loved to draw and play video games and try on her Mom’s makeup; and when she came out as a bisexual, Nicole simply told her daughter: "We love you no matter what."

But school was a different story; other students bullied her, called her names, say she was disgusting, make her feel worthless, and before long Alyssa would come home from school in tears and she began cutting herself.

 Nicole says Southeast Polk Junior High  knew what was happening, but did nothing to protect her daughter from bullies. In fact, she says that when she took her complaints about the bullying to school administrators, she was told that Alyssa needed to "toughen up."

This is the same school where, just two years ago, 16-year-old gay student A.J. Betts also committed suicide after being endlessly, horrifically bullied. See his story HERE.

But even in the light of Alyssa Morgan’s death, the school takes almost no responsibility. On April 30, Southeast Polk Community School District Associate Principal Nathan Ballagh emailed a statement to a local news station:

"Over the last four years our students and staff have stepped up our bullying prevention efforts. A lot of our efforts are led by our students who provide us (school officials) insight to what bullying looks like in our school and community and what we can do to help prevent bullying. Our students have really been the driving force and have taken ownership in preventing bullying in our schools."

Sadly, though, Alyssa’s suicide was the 15th suicide at Southeast Polk Junior High in the last 12 years; that means more than once a year … every nine months actually … a student at that school commits suicide, and the administrators think they have it handled.

I have a solution, though, that might make administrators and teachers understand the problems: spend a week being bullied by your peers. Walk the halls and be shouted at, spit upon, pushed, shoved, called worthless, fat, faggot, nigger, dyke, queer, asshole, motherfucker every single day, every single hour for at least a week.

And then imagine that happening to a twelve-year-old and telling them to toughen up.

Zero tolerance means zero tolerance.

MSN

Photo Source

Another One: Amber Rose Caudel

Amber Rose Caudel died last week … from bullying.

Oh sure, there were no real physical marks on her body because it wasn’t as though the bullies actually murdered her, but years of taunts and pushes and shoves, being spit on in the halls, and name-calling finally took their toll, and Amber came home one afternoon and hanged herself in her bedroom.

She was twelve.

Scott Caudel, Amber’s father, says she was picked on in both person and online and finally gave in to the harassment and the threats.

"Amber wanted to be popular, Amber wanted to be one of those kids that everybody wanted to be with. It doesn't matter if you knock their books out of their hand, or give them a dirty look, or call them a name, it hurts. It hurts." — Scott Caudel

Lexy Greenwood, a family friend, went to Amber’s school — Evergreen Middle School in Everett, Washington — along with Scott Caudel to help students grieve and urge them to treat other kids with respect, and to stop this senseless bullying. And, in a sign of solidarity, hundreds of students marched out of the school in protest and as a way to pay their respects to Amber.

"If I can help any families from having to go through this then it's been worth something. This was totally preventable and didn't have to happen and I pray that no family has to go through this kind of pain ever, ever again." — Lexy Greenwood

The Everett Police Department is investigating the death and due to their open investigation they haven't issued a statement. The Everett School District says that they are always looking at their policies when it comes to bullying and added that they remain committed to zero tolerance for bullies in their school system.

Always looking? If that’s the case, how did Amber Caudel slip through the cracks and be harassed to death? And if you say you’re ‘committed to zero tolerance’ why was nothing done before Amber killed herself?

I am sick to death of these schools, and school administrators and teachers talking, after the fact, about all they do to prevent bullying, because I can guarantee that at least one teacher or counselor or cafeteria worker heard students bullying this girl and they did nothing.

Nothing. And, in fact, some of Amber’s friends say they told at least one teacher that Amber was being harassed, but nothing came of that.

“I don't know about that. I cannot imagine that anybody at this school or another one, hearing about that would not rush to do something to help.” — Everett School District spokeswoman Mary Waggoner

Well, I can, because it keeps happening and happening and happening.

Waggoner then tries to play the ‘We do what we can’ card by adding that the district has bullying hotlines, and that they'll talk with students about what more should be done. 

I’ll take it for you, Ms. Waggoner: stop it. Stop it in its tracks. If a teacher, or anyone at any school, hears any bullying, stop it right there. And if it continues, suspend the bullies; and then if it continues expel them.

That’s zero tolerance.

Scott Caudel says no one would stop the bullying of his daughter.

“I'm not mad at one person. I'm not mad at Evergreen Middle School, I'm mad at the system.”

I am, too; I am tired of reading about these kids, who could have had bright futures, who could have done great things, but who can’t because no one cared to listen when they asked for help.

NY Daily News

King 5
Kiro TV

Different Parents, Same Issue, Different Outcome

Josh Alcorn was assigned the male gender at birth but that never felt right, and when he was fourteen he learned what ‘transgender’ meant; he learned that maybe he wasn’t Josh, that maybe she was Leelah. And suddenly everything seemed right; right up until Leelah told her parents.

In a post to her Tumblr blog, Leelah wrote:

“After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong.”

Can you imagine telling your parent your deepest, darkest secret, one that will finally allow you to live in the light, and having them tell you that you’re wrong?

Leelah’s parents took her to a therapist, a Christian therapist; she says all they did was tell her she was selfish and, again, wrong; they told her to look to God for help. But Leelah knew God couldn’t help, so she waited; she was sixteen, and would wait until she was 18 and then leave home and live her life; at 18 she could begin transitioning.

Still, she rebelled in the only way she knew how: she came out at school as gay, hoping this would shock her parents into understanding who she was; it didn’t. While Leelah’s friends understood, and accepted her as a gay man, her parents grew angrier:

“They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted. So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed … I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.”

Finally, her parents relented — not in accepting their child was transgender, or even gay mind you — and let her have her phone back, let her have her social media back, let her have her friends back. But nothing else changed.

“After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. “

Leelah Alcorn stepped in front of a moving tractor trailer truck on southbound Interstate 71 in Union Township last Sunday morning.  Now her parents have no child, whether boy or girl; all they have are the memories of an unhappy child, desperate to be heard, to be understood, to be loved; to be herself.

The story could end there, with my heart breaking at the idea of what was done to Leelah Alcorn in the name of God, but there’s another story, this time of a girl assigned the female gender at birth and how her, his, parents dealt with it.

Shiloh has never felt female, has always more identified with male gender, and when she told her mother how she felt, well, her mother said:

“She wants to be a boy. So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys’ everything. She thinks she’s one of the brothers.”

Shiloh even asked to be called John, and her parents, and her family, call him that. His parents don’t know if this is a phase, if they have a daughter who is a tomboy, or a son who desperately wants to be himself, but what they do know is that they love their child, and will do whatever is necessary to make their child happy. They have not looked at Shiloh’s desire to dress and act like a boy as “just a phase.” Instead, the couple has embraced their child, and given her the opportunity to explore who she really is.

And that meant going out with Dad and the brothers one night when Mom was sick; John asked to wear a suit just like his brothers, and so he was given a suit. And all the pictures of John in that suit show a happy child, a contented child, a loved child. And John’s, or Shiloh’s, parents must be happy knowing that their child feels loved and accepted as Shiloh or John, with short hair or long hair, in a suit, or a dress, because, really, that’s what parents should be doing for their children.

At least that’s what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are doing for John. They are letting their child explore gender, find himself, or herself, where he or she fits in, without fear of being unloved, unwanted.

I’d ask who the better parents are, but it’s very clear the better parents are the ones whose child is still here, walking a red carpet in a suit, and not walking in from of a semi-truck on the highway because her parents told her she was wrong.

Brad and Angelina via Inquisitr

Leelah Alcorn via Patheos

Another One: Ronin Shimizu

I posted the story on my blog once before about the time I was a mascot for one of my high school basketball games. My sister was Claudia the Cougar — this was back in the days when Cougar meant cougar, not predatory older female — and I was Clyde the Cougar. I remember how fun it was being in that costume during the game, but I also remember that I didn’t tell any of my friends that it was me because I didn’t want to seem, you know, gay.

Ronin Shimizu, a 12-year-old Folsom, California boy never felt that way; he was the only male cheerleader with the Vista Junior Eagles Cheer Team; he was a member of the drama club, a Boy Scout, just a boy who took his own life last week after being bullied for being a cheerleader.

For being a cheerleader.

And before he killed himself, Ronin endured insufferable bullying, that became so intolerable that his parents actually removed him from school and homeschooled their son. That just makes me shake my head, in wonder and sadness and anger; Ronin was the victim who was removed from school while the bullies continued on their merry way.

Another thing that makes me angry is that both Folsom Middle School and the Folsom-Cordova School District confirm that they received a number of complaints from Ronin’s parents about the bullying, but maintain they followed protocol. Daniel Thigpen, Public Information Officer for the Folsom Cordova School says the incidents were handled; to which I say, not very well because now a boy is dead.

Here’s how the incidents should be handled: the bullies are removed from the school, not the victim. Why was Ronin forced to leave school but those little monsters who tortured him because, Jesus Christ, he loved to cheer, are still allowed to get up every day and go to school with their friends and, of this I’m certain, find a new target to bully? Why?

And why does Daniel Thigpen say this:

“Any allegations bullying related to this specific incident, we’re certainly reviewing how we responded to those and we’ll use that as an opportunity to always take a look at how we respond to future allegations.”

Oh, so now you’re going to look into how you respond the allegations of bullying? Now? Now that Ronin Shimizu is dead and people are questioning your ALLEGED anti-bullying campaign, now you’re looking into it.

Too late; too late for Brandon and Danielle Shimizu who released this statement about their boy:

The tragic loss of our son has and will forever change our life. The love and support that we received from family, friends and the Folsom community has been immeasurable and words cannot begin to express our gratitude through this most difficult grieving process.

The people close to our family know exactly who Ronin was, but since the story of this tragedy has spread worldwide, we want to take a minute to let the world know who he was.

Ronin was one of the most loving, compassionate, empathetic, artistic and funny kids to grace this earth. Ronin was a child who was not afraid to follow his heart, and we as his parents did everything in our power to allow him to pursue his passions, while protecting him from the minority that could not understand the specialness he possessed.

As you already know, Ronin loved to do Cheer, but he also loved art, fashion, being a Scout and most recently crew/rowing. It is true that because of his specialness, Ronin was a target of bullying by individuals that could not understand or accept his uniqueness.

Ronin was not just a target of bullying because of his participation in cheer, but for him just being Ronin. We as his parents always knew that he would make an impact on the world, we just thought it would be in something like fashion design or art related. We had no idea that God and Buddha had a more important role for him, and we as his parents will make it our mission in life to turn this tragedy into something positive and hopefully prevent another senseless tragedy.

In closing, please remember that education in regards to bullying prevention does not only need to occur in our schools but also in the home.

Thank you.

Why should any parent ever have to release a statement thanking people for supporting them in the grieving of their son’s suicide because of bullying?

It’s time for real Zero Tolerance; you bully, you’re out.

Why should there ever be one more?

Daily Mail

News10
CBS Sacramento

Another One: Lexi Lopez-Brandies

I’ve been holding on to this story for over a week now. I didn’t want to post it before Christmas, and then I didn’t want to wait until the first of the New Year. But the fact is that these stories must be told because they’re still happening; we’re still wringing our hands and asking ‘What can we do?’

Alexis “Lexi” Lopez-Brandies, a 14-year-old freshman at Horlick Senior High School in Racine, Wisconsin, committed suicide just before Christmas.

A vigil was held last week in her memory, with nearly 200 mourners gathered outside her home carrying candles; the vigil was organized by both the Gay-Straight Alliance [GSA] and the Youth Empowered in the Struggle [YES!], a group for Latino students and friends.

“She was such a beautiful person and I wish everybody could have met (her) because she really did turn everybody’s life around in a positive manner.”—Michael Dollaka-Posch, a friend

Lexi’s friends and family believe she was the victim of bullying which lead to her taking her own life, saying she was verbally attacked at school and on social media.

Stacy Tapp, a spokesperson for the Racine School District, says officials are working with the GSA and YES! to come up with an effective program to address bullying, and to address issues confronting students who identify as LGBTQ, and while I applaud that, in a way, I’m tired of schools and school officials saying things like “we’re working on it.”

Here’s how it’s done: bullying is not acceptable behavior; ever. You bully someone; you’re out. The victims of the bullies aren’t punished; they aren’t told to stop “acting gay”; they aren’t told how they need to adapt; if you bully someone, you’re out. Even if you’re a teacher or a coach or another parent. You call it Zero Tolerance and you mean it. Zero bullying.

Work done.

And then maybe we won’t have Another One.

source

Another One: Ayden Keenan-Olson

I’ve already had my say on Alec Baldwin, but I watched this week as Anderson Cooper discussed the situation, and one quote, which echoes a sentiment in my blog post [see it HERE] stuck with me:

"If Alec Baldwin had yelled the N word to that photographer or yelled an anti-Jewish slur against that photographer, it would be over. But the F word is a word that kids are called in school every single day. Teachers often do nothing about it."—Anderson Cooper

One of those kids was an English kid, Ayden Keenan-Olson, just 14-years-old, who took his own life by swallowing an overdose of prescription pills. He left two suicide notes saying how he could no longer cope with the homophobic and racist bullying he experienced at school.

Ayden had come out to his parents just three months before his death, and his mother, Shy Keenan, said that after that he was a different boy; free to tell people he was gay:

“He said he was gay and had found somebody he thought he loved but it was not reciprocated. We didn't care, we just loved him whatever.”

Sadly, Shy Keenan works as a child abuse campaigner, and says her job was to protect kids from online bullying but she “could not keep my own son safe.”

All sad, all sad, but the anger in me kicks in when I found out that that Robert James, acting head teacher at Philip Morant School, recalled that Ayden had reported twenty incidents of bullying since joining the school in 2010.

Twenty times that young boy asked for help; twenty times he said he was being bullied and harassed and called names.

Twenty times, and yet all James says now is that, “As a school, our first priority is to make sure our students are safe.”

I think you failed, Mr. James; you failed twenty times and one young boy is dead as a result.

But how can we expect the children to stop the bullying when they see it on TV; when the celebrities they admire use those derogatory terms as a weapon. We’re teaching the next generation to bully because we let the adults get away with it.

And when they get away with it, young boys like Ayden Keenan-Olson lose their chance at a future.

As an aside:

It's ironic, these posts today. I get such a feeling of, well, pride, when someone comes out because I think it makes the world a better place for all of us. And I think that these young kids, gay and straight, seeing someone come out, makes it all the more, well, normal, I guess.

But then we still aren't treated normally in many places by many people.

We can't visit our loved ones in the hospital if they have homophobic relatives and we can't even grow up to be adults if we are surrounded by bullies who taunt us endlessly.

So, while we got a wee step forward today with Andrew Scott coming out, we took a couple of steps back with Sarah Bray being kept from her partner and with Ayden Keenan-Olson losing his battle with the bullies.

source

Spirit Day ... Go Purple ... For Them

What is Spirit Day?

Spirit Day is an annual day held on the third Thursday of October when millions of Americans wear purple to speak out against bullying and to show their support for LGBTQ youth and to speak out against bullying. 

Spirit Day was started in 2010 by high school student Brittany McMillan as a response to the young people who had taken their own lives. Observed annually, individuals, schools, organizations, corporations, media professionals and celebrities wear purple, which symbolizes spirit on the rainbow flag. 

Getting involved is easy ...

Just go Purple.

And do it for ....

Tiffani Maxwell

AJ Betts

Carlos Vigil

Lucy Meadows

Steven Simpson

Jadin Bell

Josh Pacheco

David Hernandez Barros

Brandon Elizares

Joel Morales

Zachery Gray

Jay Corey Jones

Jack Reese

Kenneth Weishuhn

Austin Rodriguez

Rafael Morelos

Phillip Parker

Jeff Fehr

Eric James Borges

Jacob Rogers

Jamie Hubley

Jamey Rodemeyer

Nicholas Kelo, Jr.

Brandon Bitner

Tyler Clementi

Asher Brown

Justin Aaberg

Billy Lucas

Phoebe Price

Jaheem Herrera

Jeremiah Lasater

Megan Meier

Eric Mohat

Carl Joseph Walker Hoover

For more info, check out Spirit Day at GLAAD