Posted on 04/23/2009 9:38:13 PM PDT by Pinkbell
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera woke up on April 16 acting strangely. He wasn't hungry and he didn't want to go to school.
Jaheem Herrera's mother thinks he hanged himself because he was perpetually bullied at school.
But the outgoing fifth grader packed his bag and went to school at Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia.
He came home much happier than when he left in the morning, smiling as he handed his mother, Masika Bermudez, a glowing report card full of A's and B's. She gave him a high-five and he went upstairs to his room as she prepared dinner.
A little later, when his younger sister called him to come down to eat, Jaheem didn't answer.
So mother and daughter climbed the stairs to Jaheem's room and opened the door.
Jaheem was hanging by his belt in the closet.
"I always used to see these things on TV, dead people on the news," says Bermudez. "I saw somebody die and to see this dead person is your son, hanging there, a young boy. ... To hang yourself like that, you've got to really be tired of something."
Bermudez says bullies at school pushed Jaheem over the edge. He complained about being called gay, ugly and "the virgin" because he was from the Virgin Islands, she said.
"He used to say Mom they keep telling me this ... this gay word, this gay, gay, gay. I'm tired of hearing it, they're telling me the same thing over and over," she told CNN, as she wiped away tears from her face.
But while she says her son complained about the bullying, she had no idea how bad it had gotten.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Ping
That is soooo sad.
It is sad and heartbreaking. I pray for his soul and I pray for peace in his family.
And I hope that those bullies are caught and face some sort of action.
:(
Why do kids call kids gay at 11 years old. Certainly the kid was not gay. He might have had feminine way about him but he was not gay. It is ridiculous for kids to do that. Sure if he was 16 and came out than fine, but 11 years old??? The kids who made fun of him should be ashamed of themselves.
No words worthy of such sadness. Poor kid. Can’t imagine the suffering his family is going through right now. Can, I suppose, but don’t want to.
so much for socialization in gobernment schools..
Parents, it’s past time to get your kids out of government schools.
“But while she says her son complained about the bullying, she had no idea how bad it had gotten.”
I am not blaming the mama, but it’s a lesson to us all, bullying is a terrible burden for a kid to bear.
Would we go to work where we are called “gay” and taunted as “the virgin” and insulted all the time? No, there are workplace rules against that. It isn’t tolerated for a day. Yet some expect that children should bear it for years.
Sad tragedy.
Horrific.
I know the feeling.
Horrific.
Each bully ought to have to go and sit with the corpse and stare at it for at least 15 minutes.
There isn’t a more vicious animal out there than one kid vs. another, especially at that age.
What a sad story. The young man was neither ugly nor gay yet some idiot kids couldn’t stop themselves from being idiots.
This isn’t a new development either, it was like this back when I was in elementary school going on 30 years ago.
It’s so sad to use a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
This should not be seen as a “gay” issue, no matter what language the bullies used. A bully, is a bully is a bully, and the language a bully uses is whatever the bully thinks will intimidate, or taunt, the victim.
Two things.
In my day, the worst bullies were removed to reform school and to the rest of the kids the remaining bullies were the most unpopular kids. I think if the first part is done more often, the second part will more often follow.
BTW, where's his dad?
I bet they will have a day to honor him and those same azzhats will do something incredibly mean to “honor” him. May they live with the tortured knowledge they themselves were the reason for an unnesesary end to a young boys life.
In the old days, if someone called you “gay”, you knocked their teeth out. In our new society, you go home and kill yourself.
1) Because Kids are cruel
2) Because Kids have the homo agenda in their faces from age 5 so they allknow exactly what gay is..
Lot's of kids commit suicide for variety of reasons. What makes this story so special that CNN has to publish it is... Drumroll please
"He used to say Mom they keep telling me this ... this gay word, this gay, gay, gay. I'm tired of hearing it, they're telling me the same thing over and over," she told CNN, as she wiped away tears from her face.
Oh... so it's the use of the word gay as a perjorative... Ban it... Make it illegal... Make it a hate crime...
I hate CNN with their constant liberal agendas driving news coverage.
What kind of worthless parents wouldn’t recognize their kid is depressed?
I don’t see any indication here that this was confirmed to be an intentional suicide. So many kids are playing this idiotic “choking game” these days, and a few have died doing it alone. If there was no suicide note, nobody reporting he told them he was planning to kill himself, and he’d come home from school happy about his report card that day, I don’t think this was intentional suicide. Maybe there’s more info that isn’t given here, but from what I see here, the mother is being quick to blame other people for her son’s “suicide”, without any substantial evidence to support the allegation.
It’s stories like this that make me glad that hubby and I make the financial sacrifices necessary to be able to homeschool. I can’t imagine my precious babies subjected to that kind of cruelty. Or worse yet, my precious babies learning to be that cruel from others.
My heart breaks for that precious little boy and his mother. And his sister.
WELL PUT.
Yet, without the perspective of age . . .
one tends to FEEL like it will go on forever with no recourse . . . a very hopeless and dark feeling.
I was picked on in grade school because I was the shy, quiet girl, and some days at school were hell. Now it wasn’t as bad as what that boy went through; there were some good days and bad days, but I still have vivid memories. I went to a Catholic school too. I can empathize with that boy. I wish that someone was able to intervene and that he knew that suicide wasn’t the answer.
When I have kids, I will not tolerate them being bullied, even if that means I have to homeschool.
He was a cute kid! Oh how awful.
“Why do kids call kids gay at 11 years old. Certainly the kid was not gay. He might have had feminine way about him but he was not gay. It is ridiculous for kids to do that. Sure if he was 16 and came out than fine, but 11 years old??? The kids who made fun of him should be ashamed of themselves.”
They do it just to be mean.
They know the kid isn’t gay - they’re just being brats.
Even the younger boys are using this term now as they’ve heard it from the older ones.
Kids call each other gay because who wants to be thought of as gay? Especially that age. They don’t need an excuse, but from my own past, it’s hardly the only thing you get called.
called gay, ugly and "the virgin" because he was from the Virgin Islands, she said.
He wasn't using proper ebonics ?
So the teachers had no idea that this was going on? They probably didn’t want to make waves and get involved, just hoping to finish out the school year.
You treat a bully only one way to get them to stop bullying you. Fight. The kid needed a dad to help stop this tragedy. Had the child been taught how to stand up for himself it is likely the bullies would have moved on to easier prey.
“Why do kids call kids gay at 11 years old.”
Probably because the media bombards them with the message constantly, not to mention the militants pushing to get the agenda in schools at every grade level.
“In the old days, if someone called you “gay”, you knocked their teeth out.”
Actually in my day we would have been terribly confused as the term “gay” didn’t become popular in describing those sorts until perhaps the latter ‘60’s.
Had somebody referred to me, called me a “Queer”, or a “Homo” back then I would have knocked out his teeth for certain, but “gay” wouldn’t have promoted more than a question. What the “H” is a “gay? Once the party explained what a “gay” was, I probably would have knocked his teeth out.
There were times I remember as a kids when ignoring them sometimes worked.
They don’t like ridicule either.
I was a snarky thing, and when they tried the tough act it made me laugh.
On a couple of occasions I did have to shove back and that took care of it - and I’m a chick!
The bullying with the girls is a bit different.
“SAD”
What’s sad is our pansied-down society, feel good society doesn’t teach kids how to PROPERLY deal with bullying. It’s called BASIC SOCIOLOGY....
Instead, we send kids to “Bullying Class” (I kid you not! My wife was REQUIRED to take her 5th grade class to one of these sessions just last week!)
I was this same kid, and I learned, in the 5th grade, by the way, that the best way to deal with a bully was a 2x4 up the side of the head. YES, I did have to pay the Dental Bill, (Well, at least my PARENTS did), but I NEVER had another problem with this kid, ever again. Or anyone else, for that matter, until High School, when I had to repeat that performance for another bully.
I was the the Theater/Music/decent grades/Chess Club student that the bullies and jocks DID NOT DARE to mess with. And I often found myself defending others against those bullies, as well.
It’s been a lesson that has served me well, throughout my life.
this is awful... and the sad thing is, his mother's reaction was the same as many other parents'... just keep sending the poor child to his tormentors...
“...sit with the corpse...”
I agree, along the another poster’s comments that it’s not tolerated in the workforce..it should not be tolerated at school. Bullies of today, are far different from yester years! Not to say it’s ever been “okay”.
Shame on the system...at least one adult in that school had to know...
What a sad story.
That’s right! The toleration indoctrination—has reared it’s ugly head—but hey, he wasn’t gay—and the bullies obviously hate virgin gays, so that’s just confusing!!
(/sarc)
RIP.
I know of a couple of parents who were bullied, and their kids came out very strong, confident with lots of friends. I know of at least one parent who was a bully, and her child got picked on, a lot!! Interesting eh? I realize that these examples are not statistical proof...but some how I think parents who were bullied become really great parents...
My older boy was being bullied by a kid last year in 7th grade in another school. It seemed the bully would “go through” various kids and bully them (verbal, annoying stuff, no violence). We talked about it with my son, and he said he would try to reason with the kid - didn't work! Then we talked about talking to the teacher about it. My son didn't want to be a “narc” - so mom and I told the teacher.
The teacher brought the kid in with his parents, “had observed some of his behavior”, and told him if it happened again he was getting kicked out of the school. (It is a “choice” public school). That was enough (and my son praying for the bully!) - and the kid was never a problem again. And he and my son are now best friends!
It turned out well, and solved the kid's bullying behavior all together. But sometimes with the more aggressive and violent bullies you just need to grab a piece of old metal fence post off the ground and swing it across their leg and slice a gushing wound for them to stop. (Well, I didn't know I was going to hit him THAT hard!)
Heartbreaking.
Did you notice the Gay whatever alliance jumped in, making it seems as though the boy was indeed gay?
It is very difficult to raise children with a mother and a father in the home. It is not twice as hard , but ten times as hard to properly raise children with only one parent. It is extremely difficult for a single mother to help a boy become a man.
We do not know why this family had no father, yet we do know that more and more children are being raised without a father in the home. Last year 40% of all children in the U.S. were born to unmarried women. This is a recipe for disaster. Children without fathers in the home are much more susceptible to peer pressure, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, sexual promiscuity, teen pregnancy, and criminal activity.
A welfare check is no substitute for the stability and structure generated by a two parent household!
May I proffer some advice to single mothers out there? In my experience, women do not understand the social environment boys experience in public schools. Boys need a father (hopefully) or at least a male role model to teach them how to cope with the thuggish and brutal behavior of other kids. To this end, the father has to teach him how and when to throw the first punch, how to end a fight and the undisputable truth that fighting back a punk is the best way to get him to leave you alone, and is the best way for a boy to respect himself.
To the single mothers out there (because probably every father of a boy already knows this), if your son is being hassled by bullies, he has to learn to fight. He will need some boxing classes, or learn judo, and especially learn weight lifting, so that for his own self respect, he can handle the inevitable bully and cope both physically and emotionally with the situation.
If you teach your son these things, you will make him successful later in life.
I remember the talks about bullying given in school, and they seemed to fall on deaf ears.
I strongly agree.
That is interesting, and I hope my kids are confident with lots of friends.
They are different, less prone to physical violence in bullying. Our reactions are much different, however, in how much people overreact. We make it into this impossible problem that no one can solve, when as another poster presented, there are obvious and workable solutions, but we deny bully victims the chance to take them, with our inane zero tolerance concepts for school fighting.
Should a bully victim use a weapon in defense, such as a handy rock or a 2x4, the victim would be taken out of school in handcuffs, and tried, likely in adult court, for attempted murder. At the very least, the child would be suspended for a week, if not expelled, for the crime of defending himself.
See, sanity has slipped away here. We want teachers to deal with the problem, and where were the parents, yet as adults we're fighting for the right to have the 2nd amendment apply to us for personal defense. Yet people keep thinking that's just limited to firearms - where does it say that? The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed - it doesn't say the rights of adults, it doesn't say the rights of people outside of public school, it says the people.
'course, another issue is the smaller families that people are keeping now a days - hard to bully someone when their older brother will come beat the stuffing out of you. But again, we've made simple self defense in school a crime.
I'm not advocating kids be armed with 45s and shoot it out in school, but I am advocating that adults take a huge step back from the issue, and re-let kids get back into the status of handling the issue themselves. Because two decades of endless parades of anti-violence symposiums, dialog teaching, etc has done nothing but made the problem worse. End the zero tolerance policies and let kids defend themselves. Because more regulation, more government, and an expectation that others will handle the problem is never, ever, ever the right solution, and more times than not, it is indeed the root problem in the first place.
It’s hard for me to understand how a kid could get to this point, without his teachers noticing the other classmates giving this kid so much grief.
Is there really that much free time with no teachers around, so that kids can get away with this stuff?
Perhaps the mother wasn’t in tune enough. It’s hard to know.
I do hope the kids who participated in this get about five years probation for it, and I hope they have to go through many hoops as a part of it.
It's been past time for at least 35 year now in most school systems in this country; and still you have parents who are either too self absorbed, or too unconcerned with the welfare of their kids, that they continue to immerse them in the government system.
And while I'm at it: there are some private "Christian" schools out there that are no better in protecting kids from this kind of bullying either. I know because I had my kids in a Christian supported private school for about 6 years, and when my son was in the 2nd grade at this school, certain of his classmates began the same kind of name calling on one particular kid in his class.
The mother of the young boy pleaded with the administrator several times, and when she had had enough she consulted myself about the matter. I asked my son was this indeed happening to this boy, and he verified what the mother was saying.
Being a board member, I simply told the administrator that it will be stopped now, or he'd be gone!
The children in question were called into a meeting with the administrator( with their parents) and told that under no circumstances would this be tolerated, and if the kid in question was antagonized again, they'd be removed from the school.
The problem ended immediately that day!
“Why do kids call kids gay at 11 years old.”
I thought it was odd that the article focused so much on that issue. Kids start calling kids names and using bad words long before they even know what they mean.
There was a kid in my fifth-grade class who we all assumed was gay...acted effeminate, hung out with the girls instead of us.
20 years later, I see him at church with his beautiful wife and 2 children while most of the rest of us were still single. Maybe he knew something we didn’t.
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