Bullies and School Officials Beware: We're Watching

by Stacy Dittrich

It’s a story that sounds like it’s right out of a Lifetime Movie of the Week (undoubtedly, it will be). Pretty Irish girl immigrates to a small Massachusetts town. Pretty Irish girl catches the eye of the popular football player and succumbs to his charms — they have sex. The other girls in the school grow quite jealous of the pretty Irish girl and begin to bully her in a relentless and utterly disturbing manner as school officials sit by and do nothing. Pretty Irish girl commits suicide. She was only 15.

But this horrific and absolutely outrageous story is anything but a Lifetime movie. It's a growing trend that occurs daily across our nation’s schools: Bullying. Some refer to it as the “Mean Girls Syndrome” or “Clique Attacks,” but it has gotten completely out of control. It's long past time it gets recognition. Finally, it's getting the attention, but at the cost of young girl’s life.

Fifteen-year-old Phoebe Prince (above left) left a picturesque, seaside village in County Clare, Ireland to come to America. Her family had hopes of a better life. The brunette beauty could now experience the real life of an American teenager -- and then some. Somewhat of a novelty at her school, Phoebe attracted the most popular boys. As a young girl in a new and strange environment, Phoebe undoubtedly felt like a princess as an attractive football player courted her. Unfortunately, Phoebe engaged in sex with this boy, and another popular, strapping young buck.

What followed is a text-book case of unrelenting stalking, harassment, and assault, and a group of school officials who turned their backs. The boys began bragging about having sex with Phoebe. This, of course, gave the group of Mean Girls ammunition to continue their pursuit of her. Each day, the harassment grew worse. As Phoebe walked down the hallways from class to class, they knocked her schoolbooks out of her arms onto the floor, then kicked away. They would shout names at her like “Irish slut” and “whore.” She was constantly subjected to items being thrown at her. One girl drove by Phoebe and pelted her with a full can of Red Bull.

Phoebe’s parents continuously asked school officials at South Hadley High School to intervene. Clearly, their pleas fell on deaf ears. On January 14, 2010, Phoebe had a particularly brutal day at her new school. Avoiding the lunch room, she went to the library to be alone and concentrate on her studies. The bullies followed her into the library and unleashed a verbal tirade of degrading names and physical threats. Astonishingly, a teacher sat quietly nearby, witnessed the entire incident -- and never said a word. After school, Phoebe went home and promptly hung herself in the stairwell of her home. Furthermore, what brought this sickening story to the forefront was that after news of her death spread throughout the community, those bullies had the audacity to go on Phoebe’s Facebook page and continue their verbal tirades against her. Phoebe Prince couldn’t escape the bullies even in death.

The community was outraged. As the case made its way onto the national news wire, pundits debated whether or not anyone should be held responsible. I happened to come across one talking head who ignorantly stated: “So she was called a few names and pushed a little! She obviously had other problems to go so far as to commit suicide.” I seethed with anger at this. I wanted to look him(Juan Williams) in the face and ask if he had ever lived his life as a 15-year old girl. I wanted to know if he had ever known the emotions and the constant depression a girl that age can go through if she didn’t fit in with the cool kids.

I experienced a year of pure hell with my own daughter when she was only 11-years-old. Each day in her 5th grade class, she was subjected to name-calling and shoving in the bathroom. It got so bad that every day she left for school, my stomach was in knots. When she got off the bus crying, I wanted to drive to the school and scream. I felt completely helpless. I can’t even begin to imagine the anger and anguish the parents of Phoebe Prince are going through. With my daughter, I was in the principal’s office every week demanding that he take care of the problem. If I heard, “Well, you know how girls can be … they’ll work it out,” I thought I would come unglued. Even after I explained that it is the school’s responsibility to protect my child for six hours each day, the school did nothing.

Finally, I simply called the school and told them she would not be attending until they fixed the problem. And that they better get her assignments ready so she doesn’t fall behind. It was only after I threw in the towel and said I was going to the police department did any action ensue. It was unbelievable. It was a gamble on my part since, I was fairly certain the police would take no action against any 11-year olds unless there was a genuine assault.

I heard similar stories within my community, including one mother who literally kept her daughter home for a year due to lack of enforcement by school officials. This is everywhere. What’s even more shocking is the parents of the bullies refuse to see their children for what they are. In the case of Phoebe Prince, the mother of one of the girls criminally charged, Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, publicly defends her with sheer ignorance. She blames Phoebe Prince.

“Sharon exchanged a couple words with her, that’s all,” Angeles Chanon told the Boston Herald. “Phoebe was calling her names, too. They’re teenagers. They call each other names.”

I commend the district attorney’s office for criminally charging the group with charges ranging from statutory rape, assault, and harassment to civil rights violations. However, they completely wimped out when it came to holding school officials criminally liable. They said their failure to act was concerning, but not criminal. Really? The school officials hold an enormous amount of culpability as far as knowingly failing to act, or being negligent to say the least.

Between 1999 and 2007 the number of students being home-schooled in the U.S. nearly tripled and is growing at a rate of 5-12% per year, according to the National Home Education Research Institute. What used to be known as a somewhat freakish practice has gone mainstream. The socioeconomic groups of home-schooled children have leveled. There are children of doctors, lawyers, and judges as well as of lower class households being home schooled. What has become the number one reason for the rise? Bullying. Females being home-schooled almost double the number of males.

Needless to say, it is time that school officials are held accountable. By law, we are required to put our children in their care. Why doesn’t the law protect our children while they are there?

Tweet

New Life for a Closed Case

by Diane Fanning

Military investigators, the justice of the peace, and the medical examiner all agreed—Colonel Philip Shue committed suicide. The circumstances of Shue’s demise always made me skeptical. Now, University of Alabama and they were ready to move. They were both excited about this new development in their lives.

That morning before he left his house, he took his vitamins and talked about coming home early to cut the grass and clean the pool. He said he wanted to spruce the place up before they put it on the market.

Police were tightlipped about their investigation but did say that Shue apparently was “abducted and somehow abused.” Kendall County Sheriff’s investigator went so far as to say that Shue was not in control of the car when it crashed.

No one was surprised when Bexar County Medical Examiner Vincent DiMaio issued an autopsy report declaring that Shue died from head injuries, including multiple skull fractures, caused by the collision. But many were stunned when DiMaio said that Shue’s wounds were self-inflicted and he committed suicide by deliberately running off the road. Tracy Shue, Philip’s friends and colleagues including the fellow psychiatrist who provided counseling to Shue refused to believe that conclusion. Nonetheless, the grand jury backed the medical examiner’s finding.

Tracy hired Forensic Pathologist Cyril Wecht to perform a second autopsy. He released his report in April 2004. He wrote: “I do not agree that this death can be simply labeled as a suicide. It is more likely that another person(s) played a role in his death.”

There was a cell phone in the car and Shue did not call for help. DiMaio believed this reinforced the ruling of suicide. Wecht contradicted that assessment writing that the face of the phone was bloody indicating that Shue may have attempted to use it.

Tracy filed claims against the two insurance companies who carried policies that named ex-wife Nancy Shue as the beneficiary.

Finally, in June 2008, her negligence claim against USAA Life Insurance Company entered the courtroom. In civil court, Kendall County Court at Law Judge Bill Palmer, after listening to testimony and reviewing 2,100 exhibits, cleared the insurance company of negligence but he also issued a statement that Shue’s death was a homicide.

As Tracy left the courtroom, she said: “That’s all I ever wanted. It’s been all about the truth.”

Now District Attorney Bruce Curry needs to decide if he is going to bring the Judge before the grand jury to explain his reasoning. It’s time to re-open the investigation into Philip Shue’s death.

Tweet

MySpace Millenium

by Stacy Dittrich

There is a monster lurking in your computer. Actually, there's no telling how many monsters are hiding behind that screeen, since MySpace, the social networking conglomerate, boasts close to a half billion members. Clearly, I'm a hypocrite of the highest levels since I happen to be included in the above number. However, I'm an author and use the forum for networking and advertising my books. But I'm also a police officer. The requests to become my "sex slave" and "whipping boy" (yes, those were sent) were deleted. More importantly, I'm thirty-five years old and can handle it. I'm not ten.

Granted, while working my "day job," I am continuously shaking my head in confusion and bewilderment at the lack of common sense I see in people. Case in point: A woman called me to report a sixty-year old sexual predator was sending her daughter explicit e-mails. Okay--tell me more. "He lives in Texas and was sending them to her MySpace page." How old is your daughter? "She's ten."

Huh?

My response: "A ten-year old on MySpace is like throwing meat at a pack of hungry wolves . . . shut her page down!" I failed to add the word "moron" to the former, but admittedly was thinking it. I have a twelve-year old daughter who is absolutely forbidden from the Web site. Period. Unfortunately, having Mom and Dad as police officers, she tends to be a little more "restricted" than most. The word "MySpace" is written on our police reports at least once a week. Fights, stalking, assaults, telephone harassment, and sex crimes have been committed in the space of the cyber-hangout.

It gets worse when parents become involved. I've witnessed parents sending messages to their son's ex-girlfriends, referring to them as whores, sluts, and the like. I've seen them threaten children as young as twelve. Which brings me to the Megan Meier case. She was the thirteen-year old who committed suicide after a six-week MySpace relationship with a guy who was "enamored" of her. Turns out, the boy was the mother of an ex-friend of Megan's who gave her a "Ha! Joke's on you!" message, prior to her suicide. She was never charged with a crime. Megan's mother (pictured right with photos of Megan) gave the following statement regarding her daughter's torment: "When adults are involved and continue to screw with a 13-year- old, with or without mental problems, it is absolutely vile."

She certainly had a lot more restraint than I would have.

It's not only MySpace anymore. Knock-off social networking sites are producing the same results. The British fave, Bebo, has allowed numerous teenagers to post their own memorials with seventeen of them committing suicide within the past year. Now, the videogame industry is jumping on-board. With interactive games like Halo that make it extremely difficult to track members, sexual predators are all over it. One juvenile who engaged in a sexual relationship with a twenty-seven year old that she had met on the game committed suicide. It's unrealistic to believe that her tragedy will be an isolated incident. . . .

Federal task forces are already enacted for the social-networkers. But, these are the same members of law enforcement who are grappling with identity theft, fraud, etc. They are overwhelmed and can't possibly monitor every social network. Mainly, it's up to parents to watch the computer activity of their children and teenagers. (One of our contributors has been on the front line of keeping MySpace from becoming TheirSpace.) Yes, in your children's eyes you may be the "bad" guy but . . . your vigilance may end up saving their lives.

Stay Safe!

Tweet