Roy Exum
One week ago today, 13-year-old Danny Fitzpatrick climbed into the attic of his family’s home in Staten Island and he hung himself. In his pocket was a letter written to those at the Holy Angels Catholic Academy that told, in the most heart-wrenching way you can imagine, about the horrible bullying he had endured the school year before, the constant taunting, and that “he gave up.” His last sentence was “I was out … that’s all I wanted.”
Several hundred were in the Sacred Heart Catholic Church yesterday – that’s where Danny was an altar boy – and they all wept as the bagpiper played Steven Foster’s “Hard Times (Come Again No More).” What will really make you cry is that two other kids took their lives … just last week … in Staten Island … as children the world over return to school.
Bullying is rampant all across America today.
A 2013 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claimed that 20 percent of high school students reported being bullied on school property. In just the last three years it is believed it has gotten worse as an estimated 15 percent report having been bullied in texts, tweets and other electronic ways in the last 12 months
Tell-tale signs are depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, and poor school adjustment, but Danny Fitzpatrick picked up weight, his grades plunged “and I didn’t care,” he wrote. Further, when five guys jumped him and he broke his finger, that's when he said to himself in a voice no one else could hear, “I quit.”
In Danny’s letter he names the five bullies who did all within their power to make his life miserable but the most chilling words were “ … and the teachers didn’t do ANYTHING!” Of course, that isn’t exactly true: At one point they gathered all the boys – Danny and his tormentors – and demanded Danny tell what happened, which was, of course, pure idiocy, as though no bully has ever sought revenge after any “snitch” sings.
The New York papers are awash with the tragedy. His mother told one reporter. “Danny was afraid of the teachers. He felt like the whole school was laughing at him behind his back. They humiliated him,” she said very emotionally. “My son is supposed to be playing football. He’s supposed to be home with his family.”
According to his mother, “If one kid didn’t like you, no one liked you. Danny was always left out. He used to come home and ask me to get kids to play with him. The other kids thought he was weird …. All he wanted was to just be a kid.”
Just be a kid … Last year there were five kids in the Loudoun County (Va.) School District who said as much the same thing by taking their lives and there is such an outcry there that last week, at a special-called meeting to address the crisis attracted – what’s this? – less than 50 people.
In Washington State, Snohomish County (think Everett, pop. 175,000) Health District Officer Dr. Gary Goldbaum said 13 teenagers killed themselves in 2015 alone. Thirteen in the same school district! The main culprit – bullying. According to the county’s 2014 Healthy Youth Survey, one-in-five students in Snohomish County had thoughts of committing suicide and that 16 percent had created a suicide strategy. Eight percent had actually tried suicide.
In the past 10 years, the CDC has seen America’s suicide rate increase 24 percent. It is now 13 of every 100,000 people and where it is worst is when kids bully others into saying, “I quit.”
Dr. Goldbaum was candid in a recent interview: "It shouldn't happen at all. I don't think there's any other way to look at it than a kid who commits suicide is a real failing of society.”
The new thinking among experts is to get suicide out of the closet and into the public conversation. “Let’s talk about depression and anxiety and let our young people know we can help. The fact is that you’ve got all these young people who feel so isolated, who feel they really don’t have anyone they can turn to, and that the only resource is to kill themselves … that is just stunning.”
Daniel Fitzpatrick’s mother has one single plea. “My son shouldn’t have to die to be heard. There is something wrong with adults when kids can’t go to them for help.”
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If you know of any child in any situation who is being bullied, mistreated, or abused, call law enforcement authorities immediately. Don’t wait. Call immediately, then notify officials at the school where the child attends. Somebody could have saved this 13-year-old in Staten Island.