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Nine Charged in Bullying of Massachusetts Teen Who Killed Herself

I already defended my position adequately, IMO. You seem to be the lone hold out here, so I guess the jury is hung...

My position doesn't appeal to popularity. Of course it's more emotionally acceptable to show sympathy for the little girl who hung herself in the closet. Justice, however, doesn't predicate itself on what is emotionally acceptable.
 
My position doesn't appeal to popularity. Of course it's more emotionally acceptable to show sympathy for the little girl who hung herself in the closet. Justice, however, doesn't predicate itself on what is emotionally acceptable.

The jury has been dismissed, no point in continuing the debate... ;)

I'm sure the press will grant interviews to the lone holdout. :2wave:
 
The jury has been dismissed, no point in continuing the debate... ;)

I'm sure the press will grant interviews to the lone holdout. :2wave:

So argumentum ad populem it is then. Noted.
 
What are they being charged with? Harassment?

This is stupid. Yeah what they did is probably illegal but she chose to let it get to her and made the decision to kill herself. It's her fault alone that she chose to kill herself and not theirs.

(Not commenting on the statutory rape charge BTW since the article didn't say much about it.)

She was a captive audience to the violence and intimidation, she had to be there.
 
I, for one, am glad they are prosecuting these young people for their criminal behavior. The school that they all attended should have taken strong action against them long before it came to this.

I think that young people should follow the same laws as adults. I think schools should not tolerate criminal activity on school grounds. I think the school officials should also, in some way, be called to task.

FOXNews.com - Nine Charged in Bullying of Massachusetts Teen Who Killed Herself

This is what happens when you put a crap load of kids into a mildly supervised environment.
Most of the time it doesn't develop to this extreme.

You also see this type of psychology in prisons.

Wow, amazing. I happen to have a 15 yr old daughter. Whenever we watch a movie depicting nasty high school girls, she always informs me how unrealistic that is, that it never happens at her school.

I thank God she attends a school where this sort of stuff doesn't occur.

It probably does happen, thankfully not to her.
 
No you can't...but I haven't heard anything beyond the rape that would justify prosecuting kids for being kids.

I mean, who hasn't heard someone called a slut in high school or seen others get in to brief scraps in the hall. And everyone knows there was always that one kid who drew the taunts of everyone else and that kid usually grows up to be the most handsome and successful at 30.

I am just saying...hanging herself in a closet...I doubt thats because she got called a slut and had a can thrown at her from a passing car. It just seems so sensationalized.

I think there is a difference between a one time, or a few times incidents and a constant pattern of bullying and abuse that lasted over quite a long time. I would agree with you if this were somewhat isolated or incidental, but it seems to be neither.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Suicide is one of the most selfish things you can do; it harms everybody that loves and cares about you infinitely more profoundly than it does yourself, because they have to live with it.

What she did to her family was infinitely worse than what those "bullies" did to her.
I agree. Suicide just shirks your pain off onto the people that care about you; the only ethical thing to do is to keep the pain to yourself and endure it in silence. Just think of all the suffering this girl could have spared her family, if only she had learned to endure more pain. Pity she turned to suicide instead of drugs.
 
"The investigation revealed relentless activity directed toward Phoebe designed to humiliate her and to make it impossible for her to remain at school," District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel said.

"The bullying, for her, became intolerable."

Students said Phoebe was called "Irish slut" and "whore" on Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook and Formspring.

Her books were routinely knocked out of her hands, items were flung at her, her face was scribbled out of photographs on the school walls, and threatening text messages were sent to her cell phone.

Scheibel said she had drawn the ire of the "Mean Girls" by briefly dating a popular senior football player in her first freshman weeks at the school. One student later said it felt like the whole school ganged up on her.

On Jan. 14, Phoebe was harassed and threatened in the school library and in a hallway, Scheibel said. As she walked home, one of the "Mean Girls" drove by and threw a can of Red Bull at her.

Phoebe walked into her house and hung herself in a stairwell.

The nastiness didn't even end there. Her tormentors posted vicious comments on the dead girl's Facebook memorial page.

For months, community anger simmered that no punishment had befallen Phoebe's bullies. Petitions were signed and town hall meetings held.

Scheibel said her investigators were taking the time to investigate thoroughly, and she slammed "the inexplicable lack of cooperation from Internet service providers, in particular Facebook and Craigslist."


Read more: Phoebe Prince, South Hadley High School's 'new girl,' driven to suicide by teenage cyber bullies

amd_phoebe_prince.jpg



Still thinking about this story. Sad.

If parents and schools could teach kids just one thing, it should be to treat others how you would like to be treated.
 
I think there is a difference between a one time, or a few times incidents and a constant pattern of bullying and abuse that lasted over quite a long time. I would agree with you if this were somewhat isolated or incidental, but it seems to be neither.
I would have pulled my kid out of that school.
 
I don't understand how they bullied her online. Couldn't she change her e-mail or block them from her facebook or do something else like that so they couldn't contact her?

p.s. I'm not blaming this in any way on her I'm just curious.

Well, actually it didn't necessarily have to have been on her page. If they put stuff up about her on their pages, that would still be bullying. There was stuff on Craigslist, so maybe they would put nasty ads on Craigslist as being from her, with her number possibly?

It seems like no big deal but think about it rationally. If someone is so dedicated to spend their spare time to put mean things up about another person on their own social spaces, that seems to suggest that maybe these "bullies" were obsessed with seeing this girl trashed and humiliated as much as they could. That is not your normal, everyday bullying. Most bullies are content to leave there bullying at school, with the possible exceptions if they happen to run into the person somewhere else like the mall. They don't go out of their way to stalk the person, send text messages, or constantly trash the person being bullied on their own time. And, most bullies don't gang up on someone 9 to 1. It's easy to say that maybe she should have fought back, but even if we say that the boys weren't doing the actual harassment, and it was just the girls, if they were only at half the girls when they were harassing her it would still be 3 to 1, bullies to her.

As for telling her parents, she might have been trying to hide the fact that she had sex from them. Teenagers can be ashamed of having sex, especially if they felt they were used by the person. And being from Ireland, there's a good chance she and her family are Catholic. Also, one of those stories said that there were school staff who witnessed some of the abuse, including the physical abuse, and did nothing. So she might be ashamed to tell her parents the full extent, if anything, about what was going on, and she has no reason to trust the school staff if none of the ones that seen it happen to her were stopping it right there. And being that she is new to the school, and from a different country, she probably didn't have a lot of friends at the school to turn to. I don't agree with suicide as the answer, but I can see how someone can feel that they can't take it anymore, and they just don't have anywhere to turn.

Also, from what I can tell, the bullies aren't getting charged with murder or manslaughter or anything like that. They are getting charges that fit with what they did, and that should have been done far before it got to the point of this girl committing suicide.
 
I think there is a difference between a one time, or a few times incidents and a constant pattern of bullying and abuse that lasted over quite a long time. I would agree with you if this were somewhat isolated or incidental, but it seems to be neither.

I'm gonna have to disagree here. Bullying typically takes a pattern and it doesn't just start and stop randomly. Here's an update from Slate and I find it interesting what some of the students that weren't involved had to say:

"A lot of it was normal girl drama," one girl told me. "If you want to label it bullying, then I've bullied girls and girls have bullied me. Her history made it affect her more. It wasn't the school being terrible. It was really bad, it was one of the worst things I've heard of some girls doing to another girl. But it wouldn't have hurt most people that much."

Exactly what I have been saying. It was bad, but it wasn't anything unique. I still think that Phoebe Prince's reaction was what was out of the ordinary here and if it weren't for her dramatic answer to a normal problem every kid goes through, then these other kids wouldn't be having their permanent records and lives damaged...all to make a community feel better about the selfish act of a disturbed young lady.
 
Just about every boy is rough housed by his peers at one time or another. It’s a typical behavior that’s a part of growing up and rarely results in anything more dangerous than a few scrapes and bruises. It really doesn’t hurt most people all that much.

But what do you do when a kid with glass bones is rough housed and is killed when his skull shatters? Blame him for being extraordinarily vulnerable and let the bullies off with the slap on the wrist they’d receive for rough housing a regular kid?
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
She was a captive audience to the violence and intimidation, she had to be there.

What? I don't know how this relates to my post you quoted. Who is "she"?

Befuddled Stoner said:
I agree. Suicide just shirks your pain off onto the people that care about you; the only ethical thing to do is to keep the pain to yourself and endure it in silence. Just think of all the suffering this girl could have spared her family, if only she had learned to endure more pain. Pity she turned to suicide instead of drugs.

She chose to let it get to her. Her emotional pain was self-inflicted. Her responsibility, her fault.

But what do you do when a kid with glass bones is rough housed and is killed when his skull shatters? Blame him for being extraordinarily vulnerable and let the bullies off with the slap on the wrist they’d receive for rough housing a regular kid?

Stupid comparison. One cannot help if they are "glass boned". One can, however, choose if they want to be emotionally affected.
 
What? I don't know how this relates to my post you quoted. Who is "she"?

She had to be there, her mental stability which was in question was no concern of the school.

They are just as responsible for her suicide as they did not stop the abuse.
She is the girl who killed herself.
 
She had to be there, her mental stability which was in question was no concern of the school.

They are just as responsible for her suicide as they did not stop the abuse.
She is the girl who killed herself.

I know that she had to be there and I know the abuse wasn't stopped, but that's not relevant to the fact that she is responsible for allowing her emotions to be damaged and ultimately for killing herself. It's her fault.
 
I know that she had to be there and I know the abuse wasn't stopped, but that's not relevant to the fact that she is responsible for allowing her emotions to be damaged and ultimately for killing herself. It's her fault.

It's not just her fault.

She is legally a child and she was in the care of school during her torment.
Some people can not handle it as well as others.
That is how some people are made, born, or developed.
 
What? I don't know how this relates to my post you quoted. Who is "she"?



She chose to let it get to her. Her emotional pain was self-inflicted. Her responsibility, her fault.



Stupid comparison. One cannot help if they are "glass boned". One can, however, choose if they want to be emotionally affected.

People with ****ed up biochemistry that makes their bones unable to produce the right balance of chemicals needed for normal structural integrity? They are poor bastards who deserve our sympathy.

People with ****ed up biochemistry that makes their brains unable to produce the right balance of chemicals needed for normal structural integrity? They are weak mother****ers who need to quit being whining emos. People with depression, PTSD, schizophrenia and autism have absolutely no excuses for being so weak and they have nobody to blame but themselves for their emotional pain.
 
People with ****ed up biochemistry that makes their bones unable to produce the right balance of chemicals needed for normal structural integrity? They are poor bastards who deserve our sympathy.

People with ****ed up biochemistry that makes their brains unable to produce the right balance of chemicals needed for normal structural integrity? They are weak mother****ers who need to quit being whining emos. People with depression, PTSD, schizophrenia and autism have absolutely no excuses for being so weak and they have nobody to blame but themselves for their emotional pain.

Generally, I find that people who call others "weak" and "whiners" have themselves severe emotional issues and are unable to understand or empathize with other humans. Their personal lives lack lasting relationships and their families are dysfunctional.
 
I'm gonna have to disagree here. Bullying typically takes a pattern and it doesn't just start and stop randomly. Here's an update from Slate and I find it interesting what some of the students that weren't involved had to say:

I don't agree. From everything I've read, there was certainly a pattern to this bullying. This was not your typical name-calling, pushing into a locker kind of stuff. It went beyond that, and was quite a bit worse than average bullying that happens to most kids at one time or another.



Exactly what I have been saying. It was bad, but it wasn't anything unique. I still think that Phoebe Prince's reaction was what was out of the ordinary here and if it weren't for her dramatic answer to a normal problem every kid goes through, then these other kids wouldn't be having their permanent records and lives damaged...all to make a community feel better about the selfish act of a disturbed young lady.

Her reaction was extreme, but it was to an extreme situation. I disagree that this was "typical" bullying. Even if she hadn't committed suicide, what happened to her was pretty severe and I would not vary in my assessment of what the consequences should be. I don't know if criminal charges should be brought against the kids, with the exception of the rape and the assault. However, I do agree with removing them from the school. They have demonstrated that their behavior is extremely disruptive to the ability of another student to function academically in school and infringing on their ability to get an education. For that, they should be removed.
 
Stupid comparison. One cannot help if they are "glass boned". One can, however, choose if they want to be emotionally affected.

One cannot help if they are clinically depressed, either. I don't know if this girl was, but the analogy applies to emotional issues, too.
 
I know that she had to be there and I know the abuse wasn't stopped, but that's not relevant to the fact that she is responsible for allowing her emotions to be damaged and ultimately for killing herself. It's her fault.

No, it's not, necessarily. It is quite clear that for this girl to commit suicide, even under the severe circumstances that she was subjected to, that there was some sort of psychological disorder going on. And, just like someone with a fragile bone structure, that is NOT her fault.
 
I'm gonna have to disagree here. Bullying typically takes a pattern and it doesn't just start and stop randomly. Here's an update from Slate and I find it interesting what some of the students that weren't involved had to say:



Exactly what I have been saying. It was bad, but it wasn't anything unique. I still think that Phoebe Prince's reaction was what was out of the ordinary here and if it weren't for her dramatic answer to a normal problem every kid goes through, then these other kids wouldn't be having their permanent records and lives damaged...all to make a community feel better about the selfish act of a disturbed young lady.

Has anyone mentioned that there is a legal doctrine called the eggshell skull rule that can be applied in criminal cases? What this doctrine addresses is that the defendant takes the plaintiff as he/she finds them. For example, if a defendant hits someone over the head who has, say, a plate in their head that causes the plaintiff to die, the defendant would be charged with the plaintiff's death, even though death was not truly foreseeable in the average person. I'm not sympathetic to these defendants.

Eggshell Skull Law & Legal Definition
 
Holy crap, seriously? Kids being *charged* with bullying? This happens day in and day out, across the country, for decades. Centuries! It's just a fact of life.

Yes, it's too bad that this girl had a serious over reaction, but it is NOT the fault of the bullies. She made the choice to do what she did. SHE did. HER. Alone.

Were the kids mean? Yup. Were they assholes? Yup. Did they cause her death? Nope.

If she had an underlying mental/emotional disorder that led to her being unable to handle negativity, that's not their fault either.
 
Holy crap, seriously? Kids being *charged* with bullying? This happens day in and day out, across the country, for decades. Centuries! It's just a fact of life.

Yes, it's too bad that this girl had a serious over reaction, but it is NOT the fault of the bullies. She made the choice to do what she did. SHE did. HER. Alone.

Were the kids mean? Yup. Were they assholes? Yup. Did they cause her death? Nope.

If she had an underlying mental/emotional disorder that led to her being unable to handle negativity, that's not their fault either.

Please see my post above yours.
 
Please see my post above yours.

Physically bashing someone over the head isn't really the same as hurting their feelings.

So let me get this straight... if an emotionally unbalanced person gets dumped by their girlfriend, or cheated on by them, and decides to kill themselves, you think it would be appropriate to charge the girlfriend with murder since she caused them emotional pain sufficient to make them CHOOSE to off themselves due to some underlying mental/emotional unbalance?

Because that's pretty much what you're saying.
 
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