Facebook Comment Prompts Arrests In Cyberbullying Suicide Case

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports on the arrests of two girls, ages 12 and 14, who allegedly harassed another 12-year-old girl who committed suicide. The girls are facing third-degree felony charges, and the police involvement was spurred by a comment on Facebook by the older of the two. 'In Internet shorthand it began "Yes, ik" — I know — "I bullied Rebecca nd she killed herself." The writer concluded that she didn't care, using an obscenity to make the point and a heart as a perverse flourish. Five weeks ago, Rebecca Ann Sedwick, a seventh grader in Lakeland in central Florida, jumped to her death from an abandoned cement factory silo after enduring a year, on and off, of face-to-face and online bullying. ... Brimming with outrage and incredulity, the sheriff said in a news conference on Tuesday that he was stunned by the older girl's Saturday Facebook posting. But he reserved his harshest words for the girl's parents for failing to monitor her behavior, after she had been questioned by the police, and for allowing her to keep her cellphone.'"

Re:Nothing is more evil than.....

[sabbede]

I recall how my geeky little self was treated by the girls in Junior High. Statan would have been preferable.

Re:Rebecca's parents.

[BlacKSacrificE]

Perhaps you should read the article.

"In December, the bullying grew so intense that Rebecca began cutting herself and was sent to a hospital by her mother to receive psychiatric care. Ultimately, her mother pulled her out of Crystal Lake Middle School. She home schooled her for a while and then enrolled her in a new school in August."

Religion has nothing to do with anything. You either act, or don't. Her parents did what they thought was best. Sadly it didn't pay off.

Re:Nothing is more evil than.....

[halltk1983]

It doesn't end when they become adults. It's just as common in offices and social situations. They just try to hide it better from guys.

Re:This

[dfenstrate]

The truth is that kids have their own little privately-run societies in school (on a social plane) that the adults are quite powerless to have any real control over.

You can find similar social structures in prisons, which calls into question the fundamental design of the public school system.

The kid's presence there is largely wasted effort, so they invent oft-destructive social games to use up their intellect and energy. This suggests that making school more rigourous & purposeful.

Specifically:

1) more difficult academics for the kids that can take it

2) meaningful job training in later grades for those whose interests lie elsewhere

We also need to nuke 'no child left behind' and anything that looks like it, so we can acknowledge that different children have different interests & capabilities, and handle them accordingly.

Re:Nothing is more evil than.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. You are always much better off with a nearly all-male workplace.

Mixed works well, but *only* if management is either an exceptional male, or a good female (no, a good male doesn't cut it, he won't be good enough to notice what is happening). Nothing else can keep the ladies from destroying everything over multiple simultaneous shadow power plays. Give them two years, and you end up with a team of dangerous individuals of mediocre technical performance.

Re:And I blame my parents

[Joce640k]

Why did they fail in doing this?

RTFS!

They knew their kids were doing it and let them continue.

Re:This

[jythie]

Not all bullying is easily shrugged off. If someone chooses death over living with a situation, then it was probably somewhat worse then 'someone said something mean'.

While we like to think of ourselves as strong and can just decide 'it does not matter', people also have a rather bad habit of taking whatever they went through and assuming that other cases are as easily dismissed. I have seen some very strong people taken down by systematic harassment over an extended period. They knew how to 'deal' with bullies, but similar to how knowing how to walk is of limited utility when one has a broken leg, situations can be worse then what can be simply shrugged off.

Re:This

[sumdumass]

http://www.cracked.com/article_15658_the-ten-minute-suicide-guide.html [cracked.com]

People should read that article.

You are likely correct. People i know of that has actually commited suicide hid their plans until they did it. I don't know a bunch of people who did it, but of the 4 or 5 over the last 45 years who have, we never really saw it comming. The one suicide that the person constantly claimed they would, was actually shot and killed buy a cop who responded to her threat of suicide. Of course no one thought she was serious about killing herself but the cop that saw the knife she was threatening to slit her wrists with.

Re:This

[MBGMorden]

If you'd read the article you'd see that they DID take her to get medical and psychological attention.

Re:This

[Aerokii]

I don't know if it's in the article since I heard this story last night on the news, but she did move to a different school. The bullying persisted over mobile devices and the internet. Admins and other parents were contacted, but alas, it proved too little, and now everyone involved suffers.