Editorial

10-year old commits suicide after bullies tell him 'kill yourself'

A 10-year old boy has committed suicide in Texas after bullies told him ‘kill yourself’ in school. Kevin Reese Jr hanged himself in a closet in his home in Houston

  • PublishedAugust 23, 2019

A 10-year old boy has committed suicide in Texas after bullies told him ‘kill yourself’ in school. Kevin Reese Jr hanged himself in a closet in his home in Houston early this year.

“We’ve lost a very jovial kid who was always playful but struggled at being picked on with his schoolmates at Robinson Elementary School,” his mother Crystal Smith stated.

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“They wrote on his tablet ‘kill yourself, you don’t belong here’ and things got worse when he was punched and came home crying back in November, 2018,” she further explained.

Poor management

The mother says that she reported the incident to the school management who claimed that there was no evidence of a physical altercation in school.

On persistence of the bullying and physical torture, Kevin decided to take his own life while his mum was at work.

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Increased suicide cases

Suicide rates among youth in the United States are on the rise making it the second leading cause of death among youth in the United States with accidents being the leading cause. Researchers found that between 2007 and 2016, suicides among children aged 10 to 14 skyrocketed by nearly 13 percent annually among girls, and by a little over 7 percent per year among boys.

Crystal has vowed to create awareness on parents being on top of things and stop assuming that things will be handled in school.

 

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