J. Daniel Scruggs, 12, had a long document of troubles before he hanged himself in his bedroom closet in January 2002.
Posted on 09/09/2003 7:43:27 AM PDT by bedolido
Sept. 9— Who really failed Joseph Daniel Scruggs?
Daniel was only 12 years old when he hanged himself in the closet of his bedroom on Jan. 2, 2002. By all accounts, he was troubled.
Weighing only 63 pounds, he was bullied mercilessly at school. His small size, tendency to dress in shabby clothes, poor hygiene and strong body odor made him easy prey for ridicule by his classmates at Washington Middle School in Meriden, Conn.
The bullying was so severe that Daniel feared going to school and was absent 44 days in the months before his death. And when he did attend school, officials said he purposely defecated and urinated on himself to get sent home.
Administrators complained to Daniel's mother, Judith Scruggs — who worked as a teacher's aide in his school — about his truancy and urged her to get counseling for him. Scruggs complained to administrators that her son was being bullied and that they needed to address that problem.
But school officials argued that Daniel's problems with bullying were rooted, in part, on his eccentricities, hygiene problems — and his mother's inability to address his problems and get the counseling they recommended.
State prosecutors also believed Scruggs, 52, could have done more to help her son, and charged her with risk of injury to a minor in his suicide. If convicted, she could face up to 10 years in prison.
Today, as jury selection begins in Scruggs' trial, her defense says it was the school system that failed Daniel, not his mother.
"Simply, she is not guilty of the charges," said M. Hatcher Norris, Scruggs' attorney. "Usually in cases like these, you have parents that are nowhere to be found, who aren't there for their kids. That isn't the case here. … Here prosecutors are trying to make a criminal out of a mother who has had to deal with a whole lot, between her son being bullied and then his suicide."
State prosecutors did not return multiple phone calls from ABCNEWS.com.
In their report on Daniel's suicide, police noted that the Scruggs household was dirty and cluttered. "The living conditions inside the decedent's home were appalling and unsafe," the report said. "There was an approximated 2-foot path that led from the front door back to the kitchen. On each side of this path were piles of debris, clothing, junk and other clutter."
In addition, investigators said there was evidence that Scruggs left Daniel alone and unattended for long periods of time.
A Mother Overwhelmed
But Norris said Scruggs was a single mother who did the best she could to raise her 17-year-old daughter and Daniel. Her husband left the family when Daniel was just 3 months old, Norris said.
Scruggs worked approximately 70 hours a week: In addition to her job as a teacher's aide, she also worked at a Wal-Mart. Scruggs, Norris said, could not be late for her job at school. On days when Daniel refused to get out of bed to go to school, Scruggs was faced with either being late for work and risking losing her job or struggling with her son to an extent and hoping that he would come to class.
"Under her contract with the school, she could not be late," Norris said. "And when you're holding down two jobs and you're the sole supporter of two children, every single penny counts. You can't lose one job."
In addition, Norris argued that parents cannot force their children to do something if they really don't want to do it. Daniel, he said, had a 139 IQ and ruled over his mother in the household.
"I have a 12-year-old of my own, and if he was to refuse to take a bath and started smelling, there would be little I could do," Norris said. "I could physically force him, but I would then risk being arrested and charged with assault.
"In Judith's case, Daniel wasn't that big, but she's not big, either. And whenever she did succeed in getting him to go to school, he would turn around and defecate in his pants. So what could she do?"
The Road to a 12-Year-Old’s Breakdown
Daniel took his life in the middle of his year in seventh grade, but his problems began to surface in the sixth grade.
Scruggs said Daniel was devastated that year by the loss of his maternal grandparents, who died within months of each other. She said the boy was particularly upset by the death of his grandfather, the primary male figure in his life.
Daniel was absent 37 days and tardy 42 days in the sixth grade, but school officials did not confront his mother about this problem until they sent her a letter in May, as the academic year ended.
Another letter followed in September 2001, less than two months into the new school year, when Daniel had already been absent seven days. Scruggs met with school officials in October and told them Daniel was being bullied at school and that his life had been threatened.
When school officials suggested that Daniel's poor hygiene and tendency to wear dirty clothes attracted bullying from his classmates, Scruggs said she could not get her son to bathe or wear clean clothes. School officials gave Scruggs a list of community providers to get help for Daniel.
At Scruggs' request, the school sent an outreach worker to talk to her son. However, Daniel's absences continued. Washington Middle School's guidance counselor contacted the state Department of Children and Families for suspected physical and educational neglect. (A DCF social worker conducted an investigation and did not find any signs of neglect. Daniel's case was closed the case weeks before his death.) The school filed a petition with the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters, which assigned a probation officer to Daniel.
But none of these initial measures helped Daniel. He didn't attend school after Nov. 28, 2001. School officials met with Scruggs on Dec. 4 and recommended that she have him tested in several areas, including his social-emotional capabilities and behavioral functions.
According to defense attorney Norris, Scruggs was told that the earliest she could schedule an appointment for Daniel was the following month, on Jan. 2, 2002. And Scruggs did call on that day to schedule counseling and tests — but that was before she knew Daniel had killed himself.
Multiple Safeguard Failure
Scruggs' defense points out that a report by Connecticut's Office of the Child Advocate and the Child Fatality Review Panel criticized Washington Middle School, the state's child protection agency and the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters for failing to completely assess Daniel's case and failing to acknowledge he was a victim of bullying and at risk for suicide. However, the report also blamed Scruggs for her son's death.
"As a 12-year-old boy, J. Daniel's safeguard's included his mother, his teachers and his guidance counselor, the school nurse, the school administrators, his pediatrician, the school outreach worker, a DCF investigative social worker and a probation officer," the report said.
"Eventually, J. Daniel's mother was arrested. DCF personnel were cited for poor documentation and lack of resource use. The juvenile court did not review their handling of the case, and the school system was 'satisfied' they had done all they could do for the boy," the report said. "No one took responsibility for the child's death. Everyone was responsible."
Following Daniel's suicide and his mother's arrest, a grass-roots organization called the Advocacy Group for Parents of Children Affected By Bullying was founded in Connecticut. AGPCAB INC petitioned and helped convince legislators to pass a law that requires all principals to develop systems for filing anonymous reports about bullying in their schools.
AGPCAB intends to provide awareness, support and help to parents of school bullying victims and has opened a fund to help pay Scruggs' legal bills. The group believes prosecutors have unfairly blamed Scruggs for her son's death and plans to protest outside Meriden Judicial District Court today.
"The schools will always try to point the blame away from themselves and blame you, the parent," said Lisa Toomey, AGPCAB's founder and president, who says her children were also victims of bullying. "They will always try to revictimize the victim and say the child is to blame for his problems.
"When I read about Judith's case, I just thought, 'This isn't right,' " Toomey said. "I will not rest until she is cleared of any wrongdoing. If she is convicted it will be a terrible injustice."
Not Just Kids’ Stuff Anymore
Bullying is no longer considered a normal rite of passage for children. As 12-year-old J. Daniel Scruggs' suicide and school shootings such as the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado and Charles "Andy" Williams' 2001 shooting rampage at Santee High School in Santee, Calif., illustrate, bullying can have serious long-term effects on the victims and those around them. In extreme cases, bullying victims can become so traumatized that they will either kill themselves to avoid facing their tormentors or they will lash out to prove a point.
"Just from interviews with some of my adult patients who were bullied as children, you can see that bullying can have some serious, long-term effects," said Dr. David Fassler, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
"I think schools are taking the problem more seriously today and are less tolerant of bullies," he said. "What needs to get done is for anti-bullying programs to somehow get interwoven earlier in the schools before kids get older.
According to a recently released report by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based anti-crime organization, 3.2 million children in the sixth through the 10th grades — nearly one out of six — say they are bullied every year. And 3.7 million kids bully other children, the group says.
Experts say bullying victims tend to be small in stature, reserved, passive. They may have other physical abnormalities that make them social outcasts among their classmates. They also want to avoid school, may seem depressed at home and at school and may see their grades drop. These children may not want to talk about why other children are teasing them.
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry recommends that parents encourage their bullied children to talk about their problems and let them know what they are not at fault. They should also:
Ask their child what he or she thinks should be done and encourage them to come up with a plan to combat the bullying.
Seek help from the child's teacher and school guidance counselor. Find out what programs the school or other schools are implementing to combat bullying.
They should not encourage the child to fight back. However, they should help the child become more assertive.
Help the child practice what to say to the bully or bullies and develop ways of getting out of bad situations.
Encourage the child to develop friendships with others — perhaps fellow victims of bullying — when traveling back and forth to school and during other outings. Bullies are less likely to pick on groups of people.
Bullies thrive on domination and control and may have been victims of physical abuse. At one time, they also may have been bullied themselves. Parents who suspect their children are bullies should seek help and talk to their child's pediatrician, teachers, principal and school counselors.
Many schools nationwide have developed anonymous bullying reporting measures and various tolerance and anti-bullying programs. But, despite the added attention, others admit that much more needs to be done to combat the problem.
"Bullying is a problem that has existed forever and may never go away entirely," said Dr. Lawrence Shapiro, child psychologist and author of The Secret Language of Children. "It's a very deep, insidious problem. There's more awareness of the problem and most states have developed legislation to combat it, but it will take some time for it to be considered at the level of say, drugs."
Parents and officials should develop a partnership to try to combat bullying. But ultimately, the responsibility for protecting children on school grounds may lie with teachers, guidance counselors and administrators.
"In the end, it's the schools that are responsible for protecting children," Shapiro said. "They're the educators, they're the ones with the education and the trained eye to see what's wrong, what's going on."
— Bryan Robinson, ABCNEWS.com
J. Daniel Scruggs, 12, had a long document of troubles before he hanged himself in his bedroom closet in January 2002.
This just has me completely baffled. How very sad for all concerned.
How politically incorrect of you to point out the real problem.
Behold the modern Socialist Castrati!
More appropriate, the mother sounds like an overwhelming idiot
So, rather than take a bath, the kid hangs himself...
Yeah, now that's a rational decision... and the mother is a teacher's aide in the same school, knows what's going on and does little?
At the risk of being cruel, this sounds like a genetics issue to me.
Eh?
Let's see... in most court systems, the father has no rights and men in general have been treated like crap for years... a convenient source of funds and sperm donors.
Many women run their mouths, but want the $ -- either from some poor schmuck or the government.
Men walking is the outcome of women's lib. They asked for it. They got it. Don't complain about the outcome, because in many instances, like this one, men weren't involved.
Thank you. May the Lord have more mercy than I would show the bugger.
Bzzzzt! WRONG ANSWER! I will teach my daughters to fight back, and I will start early. I will have them trained professionally in self-defence, and I can't wait for the day I can take them to our local shooting range.
Don't fight back? HAH! What MORONS!
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