Dad says teen who took his own life was bullied

[Indianademocrat91]

Source: Indianapolis Star

Corey Moore wanted to meet with the Hamilton Southeastern High School dean of students and a teacher regarding a bullying incident involving his son Jamarcus Bell, 14.

Some fellow students in welding class threw metal and hit Jamarcus, a freshman, in the back of the head, Moore said, adding that the school staff's solution was to transfer Jamarcus to another class.

A meeting time to discuss the matter could not be arranged last week and remained pending at midweek, when Jamarcus, known as Marcus to family and friends, committed suicide. Moore and Jamarcus' mother, Natalie Moore, believe his death stemmed from bullying.

Jamarcus had been bullied repeatedly at Hamilton Southeastern High in Fishers and earlier at Fishers Junior High, Moore said. Incidents included Jamarcus being hit, punched and kicked, and the theft of his shoes and some clothing, Moore said, adding that some students even kicked over and smashed candles at a vigil set up by his friends Friday night.


Read more: http://www.indystar.com/article/20101024/LOCAL0102/10240391/Dad-says-teen-who-took-his-own-life-was-bullied

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This is fucking disgusting... adding that some students even kicked over and smashed candles at a vigil set up by his friends Friday night.

The even more disgusting thing is that this was never a headline news story, I had to search for it on the website and it was in the community section of the site where if you didn't live near the city, you'd never have seen it. If I didn't hear about it by word of mouth since this happened in the city right next to mine, I would've never known about it. This is an epidemic and without media attention non-stop will only get worse.

[tblue37]

1. I am constantly amazed that when someone's child dies this way, the haters

are out there still attacking him or her, even as friends and family grieve. How sick is that!

[provis99]

3. wanna bet the candle-kickers grow up to be conservatives?

[Jamastiene]

4. Grow up to be?

They already are, imo.

[Indianademocrat91]

5. I'm sure they are.

Where this happened (Hamilton County, Indiana) is one of the most conservative counties in all the U.S. It's disgusting, even the Democrat on the ticket for the House seat is a republican just posing as a Democrat. Here is his website issues as per politicsdaily.com --> To say Crawford isn't a typical Democrat seriously understates the situation. A self-described ex-Republican and "independent conservative," he's closer in sympathies to the Tea Party movement than the political lineage of Jefferson, Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt. Under "issues" at his website, he counts himself "pro" on eight concerns (including life, arms, immigration reform, and states' rights), while being "anti" on six other matters (big government, national identification card, mandatory health insurance and government corporate bailouts among others). No detailed policy statements for this candidate; brief bullet points suffice.

[urgk]

11. Funny how many of them don't believe in evolution, but follow Darwinian laws.

I'm beginning to think that the thing they're most interested in preserving is early primate culture.

[AwakeAtLast]

31. That area of Indy is red, red, red, red, red

They're already there.

[regnaD kciN]

8. At least they're CONSISTENT assholes...

I think it would make me even more sick if the bullies were to show up making a big show of sympathy because it was expected of them, while still thinking the whole thing was B.S. I'll take my hatred and evil "straight up," thank you. At least, this way, people can see it for what it is.

[Posteritatis]

25. Sad that they'll likely see no consequences for disrupting the memorial, though. (nt)

[tuckessee]

24. There's plenty of haters here.....

....claiming all bullies are "conservative".:eyes:

[bettyellen]

27. because tolerance is not considered a conservative value, in fact they are the "haters" of tolerance

[47of74]

2. Lawyer time

I hope the school district gets cleaned out financially.

[Angry Dragon]

6. Fred Phelps would be so proud

and rush,

[Joe Bacon]

7. It's another heartache!

My heart just goes out to the family.

But my anger goes out to those vile phony asshole ¢hri$tian$ who defend bullying!

[xchrom]

9. 14 years old. nt

[urgk]

10. Did you see the "mental health profession"al who shifted blame to Marcus?

It's down toward the bottom on the first page of comments.

"As someone who worked in the mental helath profession for many years, I wonder what additional problems this young man had? It's easy to point the finger at bullying and his schools lack of caring, but I would guess he had additional issues not discussed by this article. I'm not a supporter of HSE but doubt it was 100% their fault."

I just replied to that horsecrap with this:

"Of course he had additional problems. Why else would he have been bullied? He was probably too tall, too short, too skinny, too fat, too smart, not smart enough, too bad at sports, to bad at social interaction, too good at academics, too likely to be out of fashion, too likely to be in fashion. Or maybe he had the wrong shoes, the wrong smile, the wrong eyes, the wrong locker, the wrong friends, the wrong address, the wrong parents, the wrong way of standing in the hallway. Maybe he talked funny or wore the wrong cologne. Maybe he looked at the wrong girl. Or the wrong guy. Maybe what was wrong with Marcus is that he gave some other kid with much bigger issues an opportunity to feel powerful.

Or maybe he just lived in the wrong society, where the wrong people with the wrong ideas get to advise the rest of us about mental health. The reason that it's "easy to point the finger at bullying" is because bullying is ALWAYS wrong. Singling out one kid for ridicule, assault, public humiliation and ostracism is amoral. Period. If it happened in the work place, it would result in the offender being fired or arrested.

If the first thing you can do in a situation like this is to wonder how to shift blame to some imagined flaw in Marcus rather than our collective priorities, you should be ashamed of yourself."

[reggie the dog]

14. he was too black

that counts for a lot in racist indiana which is that state in which the ku klux klan has the most support.... and to make matters worse he was nice too....that is seen as weakness by assholes

[urgk]

18. Racism may have played a part.

But, look at his facebook page. He had a pretty mixed bag of friends. So it might not have been 100% racism.

Look at his "likes" though -- Stephen King. Harry Potter. Comedy. Family Guy. Mark Twain, for goodness' sake. I'd say he was probably a pretty bright kid.

I went to a high school with, maybe 2% African American population. It was weird after going to an elementary school that was probably 50/50 black and white. And, believe me, the a-holes who had dixie flags on their trucks and their bedroom walls were just as likely to punch/kick/spit/curse at the smart kids as they were to say something racist.

Either way, I'm not surprised. Look at everything we're seeing from the Right - fear the black folk, hate the educated folk. I've said it before, but what Conservatives want to conserve is early primate society where it's kill or be killed. Hate the outsiders because they don't have your DNA. Hate the peaceful kids because they won't win a fist fight. Hate the unions because they have the potential to protect the weak from predators.

------

From Jamarcus' Facebook page:

Interests
Comedy, Life, Music

Comedy
Music
Bob Marley, Paramore, The Kooks, Neon Trees, Lil Wayne, Lil Twist, Kadawatha, Bob Dylan

Bob Marley
Books
Stephen King, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dean Koontz

Stephen King
Movies
Twilight, Harry Potter, The Hangover, Superbad, Zombieland

Twilight
Television
Silent Library, Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, Family Guy

[reggie the dog]

19. a smart black kid

that must have really pissed off the rednecks

[smirkymonkey]

34. How tragic that he listed one of his interests as "life" and the

bullying drove him to take his own.

I can't believe the cruelty that is out there - what causes that kind of hate? It's disgusting.

[Celtic Raven]

15. Well said!

:applause:

[Jkid]

20. Intolerance of difference

That is what drives bullying and peer harassment.

[ThomCat]

22. Good response. It's horrible that people first blame the victim.

:(

It is despicable when people still try to get others to gang up on the victim by creating blame that doesn't exist.

[bettyellen]

28. he was assaulted in class and they made him switch, and kept the perps in class....

that's the wrong message to send, but it seems that this spinless shit is commmon w/ school admins. Disturbing.

[Nordmadr]

23. Perfect reply for a sad ending. N/T

[reggie the dog]

12. i think i found out why he was bullied

""He loved to talk, and he loved to give hugs, and to make people feel better," Moore said. "He was always smiling." niceness is taken as weakness in modern america, niceness is something to be stamped out in the eyes of many as it is "weakness"

[urgk]

17. 100% Agreed.

I just moved my reply to your other comment. I posted to this one mistakenly. You are spot on with this. If you're nice, you're weak. I happened to have a dad who said "If you absolutely HAVE to fight, win," so I had it out with a couple of bullies who learned "nice" only went so far.

But we need to do something to help the kids who can't or won't fight back. Because they shouldn't have to.

[reggie the dog]

13. RACISM

look at the photo of his grandmother, this young man was black in the state where the kkk is most popular and in one of its worst counties.... http://www.gabberface.com/index.php?search=Jamarcus+bell to see a photo of his black grandmother


how much you want to bet that he was bullied by white kids because he was one of the few blacks. racims and homophobia are at the roots of much of these bullying stories

here is his photo http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=159517134083003&set=a.140678612633522.21221.140661312635252

so sad, now to find out if the bullies were white. if they were then is is very likely a case of RACISM!

[Odin2005]

16. Jesus!

:cry:

[activa8tr]

21. This is outrageous, a FRESHMAN in HS? And it's only about a ...

month and a half into the school year?

What the F??????? is wrong with these kids and that town? Raising a bunch of sicko's!

[Xenotime]

26. Bullies should be charged as criminals.

[Haole Girl]

29. This has got to stop

:-(

[AngryOldDem]

30. Schools need to pay more than lip service to their anti-bullying policies.

Period.

[Politicub]

32. Rules covering workplace harassment must be extended to students

It was eye opening to read the post from a week or so ago: "I was called a faggot at work today."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9319089

There is no good reason to not extend the same kinds of workplace protections to students.

[Withywindle]

33. +10,000!

If harassment based on race, religion, gender, orientation...hell, just "personality" is unacceptable in the workplace, why should it be OK in schools?

Hell, even in most places I've ever worked, even when no bigotry was involved, throwing objects at someone would definitely get the perpetrator fired and rightly so. I've definitely had co-workers I wanted to throw things at, but refrained so I could keep my job.

In schools, the victims are even more vulnerable, since they're just kids and don't really have the option of quitting.

I think EEOC-type protections should DEFINITELY apply to students as well as workers. Whenever bullying happens, the perps need to be removed from the situation for the safety of all. (In before "They're just kids!" Well, that may be, but the damage they can do to their victims is equal to anything adults could ever do--possibly worse for adolescents, because at that stage of development, kids tend to put more weight on their peers' estimation than those of adults.)