Phoebe Prince Suicide: High School Bullies Terrorized Her to Death

• Phoebe Will be missed why shouldn't they try to ban bullying, yall don't want your kids to go through this...

• Just had an update come out yesterday's paper: "Due to recent information coming out regarding Pheobe Prince the DA says her charges will stand". The information that has recently been all over the local papers/news: Phoebe attempted suicide 1 time in Ireland and was put into a "private school" (mental hospital) for it. She had major emotional problems in advance of moving to South Hadley. The reason for the move here was to get her out of the elements she was in over there. She has a minor police record in Ireland, which as been sealed due to her age (13) at the time. (don't know what's in the records, sorry) She was an emotional "cutter" and her body is (was) all scarred form it. When she became involved with these 2 boys, it was hope for her. But it wasn't to be. In Sept or oct, Phoebe attemtped suicide again over these boys (not sure what about). She was drinking excessively in Ireland and here. Also, She was over heard telling someone the day she died, "I have scars all over my body and in my mind. What else do i have to prove to them?" People are guessing that these girls found out phoebe was a cutter. And believe that was part of the bullying. it also came out that there was a suicide note. But due to the charges, they won't release it. The families are going to use Phoebe's emotional problems as a defence against the charges. And the belief is: The rapes charges will go away or be downgraded. And also that no one will see jail time. Just thought everyone would like to have this up date. As the paper this came from is not online, i couldn't cut and paste the article. Besides it took up 3 full pages (they went into the entire backgroung with details of everything including all the charges and against whom.

• Bob nailed it right on the head and I have said that many times. The bullies are no different from terrorists, whether they are eco-terrorists, homicide bombers, or the 9/11 Terrorists. Their mentality is no different from terrorists. Terrorists like bullies, like the South Hadley operate like an angry lynch mob. Terrorists and bullies have chip on their shoulder and are insecure and feed off their insecurities. Bullies and terrorists terrorize and instill fear into people. Lastly, Bullies and terrorists are no different from dictators like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot.

• y didnt u change schools ? :{ :( :(

• as a parent this is a hard thing to see,(i'm scared) we have seen the bullied permentlly damaged,kill, and now die. whether we can remember the days when we were in school, or when our children became targets doesn't seem to matter, people!!! These children aren't our generation, we all may have a story, but Phoebe will not tell her's in (5) years,the kids that make the pact to shoot-up their schools before they end their miesry,is the now-generation. and if we're going to protect them, everybody involved needs to be called to account, because as parents we have sleepless nights, endless worrying,blood.sweat and tears to rasied good human beings, who make a difference and give a damn about fellow human beings, i sign hundreds of papers at the beginning of every school year and each paper indicates that the school is the parent during school hours, so the school is liable, espcially since Phoebe saught help!! And i am sick to death with weekend parents who don't have time to raises the most important people in the world, but is willing and able to provide excuses.Everybody let this (baby) down, and it frightens me,for every child! we need to act now, before we all know what PHOEBE PRINCE'S parents are feeling.

• I knew how it feel when bitchy girls break up you and your boyfriend out of jealousy. One time the girl tried to steal my boyfriend out of jealousy. She was probably just mad because she couldnt find anyone elseto go out with. She talked shit to me on myspace and over the phone. She called me the slut and the whore. Which didnt bother me because I knew she was jealous. She was just as ugly as the girls who bullied Phoebe Prince. She look like Serena and Venus Williams(who ugly)but she was short and had short curly hair and glasses. She just like the girls who bullied Phoebe. She and them are all a bunch of jealous ugly ungrateful bitches.

• i am soooo sorry for the loss and when i herd about this story i just got sick to my stomich i know this probably wont make family or friends feel better but if you herd about the girl who recently jumped of a bridge was my couan and i can feel your pain to the people who are responsible for this i just hope yo ucan not sleep at night with all the guilt and nightmares that come to your mind all my love to friends and family sorry for your loss.

• beng a great grandfather, my experience is way back. born here, but in 5 grade, moved tothe uk[way up north, where we spoke gaelic]. came back to the states in 9th grade, by which time i had an accent,&spoke little english. plus i was short for my age.caught bloody hell from especially the "jocks". in the old country,i had to fight to walk the streets, and here when the sh#$ birds shoved me around, i shoved back.guess who got in trouble! perhaps because i learned martial arts from an older cousin [ex sas vet of the just over ww2] i had to fight to walk the streets of that seaport city, and i had to fight to walk the halls of my highschool. the problem here is if a kid today had to react to bullies the way i did in my time, they'd get thrown in juvie hall, or worse! most of the "elite" of my time were jocks& were the prince apparent members of the school,&given special consideration,AND they knew they could get away with more sh@# than just some poor "DP" or kid who couldnt even speak english!so whats the point? bulling is not a new thing. but its way past time that it was delt with.these "bully girls" should be charged with a crime,sent to an ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL, (where they might feel the other side of the problem)after all they caused a death, by the time their 21, perhaps their record could be "expunged" (or not) people need to know there are consiquences to their actions. we were taught that this was a free country, as long as YOUR freedom didnt take someone elses freedom. much longer than i wanted this message to be, just let this be the time that EVERYONE stands up and says ENOUGH ALREADY!!!! been there, done that

• I fell bad for Phoebe because in my middle school,there's bullies there(mostly boys),and they pick on me alot.Some girls join in and they make me feel bad in front of the whole school!Between classes when I walk,they all stalk me like a pack of wolfs and I'm sick of it! ~~Alicia Hart~~

• Also, I think that the school that this young girl went to should be sued in order to set an example. Showing what will happen to a school if it allows bullying to go on.

• And when I say expelled, I mean expelled for the rest of the year.

• There is a simple solution to stopping bullying. Just expel them, and have teachers and administrators that don't protect students fired. Marie, I know we argued about the whole meat thing. But I really do hate to hear about what happened to you. That was terrible. I have been bullied to before. So I can relate.

• Please spread the word that this poor women is not related to these girls. http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=290139423808&id=267095363109#/photo.php?pid=3269713&op=1&o=global&view=global&subj=267095363109&id=507012021

• Majii, It sounds like you were both a wonderful mom and teacher. You taught your daughter the right lesson. My questions to you are: did you teach at your daughters school? If you didn't, did you talk to the school? Not saying anything bad, just kinda curious. I was also bullied and often thought about suicide. I suffer from bipolar so its not a far stretch for someone with my disease to think about and/or commit suicide. The thing that stopped me from doing it was my favorite uncle killed himself when I was 12 and I know what its like for the ones left behind. There isn't a day that I don't think about him and its been almost 13 years. Also, I knew if I gave in, the bully's wouls win. My first taste of bully's was when I was 9. I had excercise and stress induced asthma so my doctors would only allow so much physical activity. We moved to a new town the same year and that was the first time I remember being called fat. I can still remember the pain I felt. I wasn't fat, just all the other girls looked sickly thin! Not only could I not do sports like the other kids, but until I was 14, I didn't know I was on steriod inhalers. So, add little physical activities and unknown steroids, and you get a girl who plumped and developed faster than the other girls! By time I was in 6th grade, I was a C cup, much larger than the other girls! There was this one girl who was a larger girl. She was always trying to make my life hell and a few times it worked! She saw me as a way to vent her frustrations since she was the "fat" girl in our class. My mom would talk to the principal and he would say he would do something, but never did. Mainly because this girls mom was even worse than the girl! If the other girls were having slumber parties and she wasn't invited, the mom would call the other moms and complain. It got to the point if they had one, she was either invited or there wasn't one at all. Me and my best friend weren't subject to the same rules and our birthday parties were very much so looked forward too! After about 4 years of my mom tellin me to turn the other cheek and it turning from mental to physical bullying, my mom told me to stand up to her. She said she was wrong to tell me to ignore it and to fight. One day we were in reading class and she threw a rock at me and made me bleed. I got up, picked up a handful of big rocks, and chucked them at her as hard as I could. A few hit her and also made her bleed. We were both sent to the principals office and of course she lied. But some of the other kids were so surprised at me standing up to her and told the teacher what happened and she got detention. I never felt so proud of myself. The bullying didn't really stop til our freshman year (when my sister was a senior!), but after the rock incident it wasn't as bad. When we moved again my sophmore year, it was the same old story just a different school. At my old school, after I got my asthma under control, I was in volleyball, track, and did cheerleading. I dated the star of the football team and since it was a small school (less than 400 kids in K-12th grade) there really weren't cliques, so I wasn't unpopluar. There were only a few people who were "outsiders" but everyone taked to everyone. But at my new school, it was different. It was a little bigger than my old one, but still not huge (maybe 500 or more kids in the whole district). They didn't have volleyball and were to gung-ho for me in track, so I concentrated on my school work and choir. I was extremely shy until I got to know you and people took that for weakness. I had my group of friends, which weren't the "popular" kids and we were always being attacked. One day a popular jerk-off took one of my friends crutches and wouldn't give them back. The principal came into see what was going on and did nothing. He knew who the crutches belonged to (even if he didn't, he could see the kid had on a cast and the a-hole didn't) but still did nothing. I went over to him, asked him to give them back, he told me to go stuff my fat face, and started to take off on the crutches. When he got going really fast, I stuck out my foot and he tripped over it, sending the crutches flying. I picked them up and told him to stop being a jackass to people and gave them back to my friend. Everyone, including his friends, laughed their butts off. Some of them came up to me later and told me he had deserved what he got. The girls ,for the most part, were horrible at best. They made fun of me cause I was "chunky" (curvy in normal peoples words), had glasses/contacts, and I didn't have the most expensive clothes. They made my life a living hell! It wasn't like at my old school where I had one girl to deal with. Here I had a whole group of them. It got so bad that I was literally afraid to go to school because it had become violent. My mom went to talk to the principal and he told her it wasn't his problem and I should just suck it up. She came home, had a few nice words about him, and told me it was up to me if I wanted to stay or not. After a few weeks of it gettin worse, I decided to drop out and get my diploma thru the college. I have regretted it sometimes, but I knew I needed to get out of there. I still see some of those girls around and I want to laugh sometimes. I'm about the same as I was in high school, but those girls have changed! Some of them look cracked out and others look old and nasty from fake baking all the time. Most of them are still rude and hateful, but a few have changed. One girl even said she wished she would have gotten to know me back then cause we had a lot in common. She even apologized for how she treated me (she wasn't the worst, but wasn't the nicest to me either) and said she was sorry she went along with her friends. There has to be something that can be done. Obviously the whole "zero tolerance" plan isn't working. I'm just sorry this beautiful girl had to go through this all because some snobs didn't like her. From the sounds of it, this school is a complete hell. And it sounds like these girls are not sorry for what they did to Phoebe since they still left nasty messages on the facebook left in tribute to her and hitting kids for talkin about what had happened at the school. They sound like bad seeds and I doubt they will ever learn or have remorse.

• KPR - if those same students send texts to teachers with the same content as they directed towards Phoebe Prince, they would be permanently suspended from school for no less than the remainder of the school year, with re-admission subject to psychological examination. Instead, 2 of the named girls get a two week holiday during which they will probably spend time on the shore or in a warmer clime.

• Ensuring a student's safety is not a matter of fiduciary duty but a matter of following the law - particularly the federal Safe Schools Act - and of reporting situations as required under MA Law, c.51A. Also, info is sought with respect to a vehicle which passed by Phoebe Prince shortly before she took her life. It has been reported that the occupants of that vehicle yelled slurs at the girl and that an object was thrown at Phoebe Prince. Who threw the object? Who else was in that vehicle? Who was driving that vehicle? And who owns the vehicle? If you have any information, please contact the MA State Police.

• Nice letter. Still not one finger pointed at the school. Think about this. You are REQUIRED BY LAW to send your child to school. Why then, does the school not have a FIDUCIARY DUTY to insure your child is safe from physical and mental abuse directed at said child from other students, teachers and administrators? Instead of another student, what if these abusers had sent a number of derogatory text mssgs to a teacher they all hated? Posted pics of her on Facebook saying she was a stupid c*** and urging people to call the teach at home? What if they, instead of shoving and striking other students in the hallway, focused physical abuse on the teacher? Think the school might have acted then? Or, after the teacher committed suicide, would the school release a statement claiming they have been studying for 18 months the issue of bullying and soon they would have an updated plan formulated to deal with bullying by students... As They Did In This Case!!!

• Being the mother of a 9 yr old daughter I have to state that alot of this bullying starts early. At my daughters elementary school they have a program in effect to stop early bullying!!I guess only time will tell how well it work's. I witnessed kid;s being singled out when I was in school but it seem's like it has gotten worse or frequent over the years.It is so sad that the most truly insecure person out of the equasion usually starts out being the bully.And they want other's to feel as crappy as them. Parent's talk to your children if they are being bullied or if they are the bulliers and don't be in denial.

• I was subject to hazing in the late 80's because I played sports. The verbal and psychological abuse was constant and would have been bad enough but the physical attacks were brutal. The most surprising thing was how the staff looked the other way, I was slammed into lockers right in front of teachers and they would walk away or just ignore it. The hazing comes from a mob mentality which is probably responsible for nearly all the problems in high school, people do things they never would do if part of a group. E.G. The Stanford Prison Experiment. This kinda stuff with even prevalent in the 1950's, outsiders were treated like they didn't belong as well as threatened with the preferred weapon of the time, the switchblade especially when they started dating. Rebel Without a Cause while fictional was based in reality and was the first movie to address the fears, pressures, and violence that the average teenager was subject to. Fitting in was just as important back then. Unfortunately the technology nowadays makes it hard to escape the bullying/hazing after they leave school. Its on their computers and its on their phones, two things teenagers are rarely without. It might appear to them that there is no escape.

• Anything short of torture of the kind they doled out to this poor girl is not punishment enough for them. We all know and have known these types. They are never sorry. Only sorry they get caught. One who gives no mercy should not expect it.

• My daughter was also bullied and ridiculed in high school because she didn't hang with a certain group of people. She was bullied because many of her friends were white, and the AA girls thought that my daughter thought she was too good to associate with them, but that wasn't it. She didn't like the things they were doing, the wild parties, drinking, and the sexual escapades. I remember how shocked I was when she came home one day and told me she wished she were dead. I had a very frank talk with her, explaining to her that these girls would win if she killed herself, and because I was a teacher at the time, I told her to hang in there until she graduated because I'd seen these types of situations before. I made sure to give her as much love and support as I could to help her work through the issue. She made it through high school and college, graduating from both with honors. Many of the girls who bullied her have not reached the level of success that she has in life. She has been dating a guy for over 3 years now, and it looks like I may be a mother-in-law and finally, a grandmother sometime in the near future. Parents need to make themselves open and available so their children feel free to discuss these types of issues with them. I'm so thankful that I was able to divert my daughter's path toward suicide.

• I agree with this. when i was in high school i stood toe to toe with the bully never backing down. after that he backed off...

• There really needs to be more done legally to bullies. I remember being bullied in high school, and the school did nothing. I was extremely depressed, lucky for me I thought about the future. This is exactly why Columbine happened and all the other school shootings, those kids were bullied and felt like there was nowhere to go. Phoebe and other kids that commit suicide would be alive if action had been taken.

• I agree that the perpetrators of this outrage should face legal consequences for their actions. There are laws against harassment and stalking; there should be an investigation to determine which of these laws might have been broken in the course of their actions and what charges can be pressed. But there are other means by which these actions can be deterred. There is a website (http://www.pet-abuse.com) that discloses the names and addresses of animal abusers. Something similar should be done to expose bullies, holding them up to the public shaming they deserve. They currently have the status of big fish in a small pond; maybe if they got a taste of what the greater public thinks of them, their cruelty wouldn't feel so "cool" after all.

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