Amanda Cummings suicide via bullying.. you have to read this

http://www.silive.com/eastshore/index.ssf/2012/01/relatives_of_amanda_cummings_s_1.html

This poor girl jumped in front of a bus!

That's not the end of it... if you go to the page set up to honor and mimorialize her.. 2 well known cyberbullying groups (9gag and 4chan)

https://www.facebook.com/pages/RIP-Amanda-Cummings/267406289989633

YES GROUPS set up for the sheer purpose of cyberbullying have posted horrible comments and even child *advertiser censored* on her FB memorial page. I hope when the admin wakes up they delete it all. I reported it to FB but by the time they do ANYTHING the damage is DONE!
That's the problem with FB. You can't contact someone immediately to have content reviewed and deleted!
The pics on there are disgusting.. OMG. I'm sick to my stomach
Sigh

I hit 'report', as well. Bunch of aholes who think they are so clever. :sick:

Jacie Estes said:

I hit 'report', as well. Bunch of aholes who think they are so clever. :sick:

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These are the same people that stalked amanda and eventually drove her to kill herself

Okay, what am I missing. SHe jumped in front of a bus. She committed suicide. No one killed her, no one pushed her. She made a choice, based on some mean texts and Facebook postings.

People have been bullied since the beginning of time. Most of them don't kill themselves. They realize that high school doesn't last forever and it gets better. What have we been teaching our children that bullying is enough to drive them to suicide? Or what haven't we been teaching them?

There have always been bullies, there have always been bullying victims. Yes, the internet makes it worse, but it's still just bullying. If parents were protecting, supervising, screeening and restricting their kids online usage, there would be no such thing as cyber bullying.

And if we were engaging our kids daily, talking, prying, pushing then to tell us the truth about their day, there would be far fewer victims.
And where were her parents? If there were signs of instability, which there usually are with "bullycide" victims, why were her parents not watching her every move, screening her texts, deleting her facebook...It seems they have plenty to say now that it is too late.

Bullies are a fact of life. Spiteful, mean people are a fact of life. Meeting them, having to interact with them, and not being able to get away from them are a fact of life. That's what we need to be teaching our kids. That and therapy, even medication when necessary. It takes a lot to cope with the world, and we have to start preparing our children to deal with bullies, because they will be dealing with them in one capacity or another for the rest of their lives.

http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-amand...anticyberbullying-legislation,0,4868327.story

"My statute will be the only one that will criminalize cyberbullying," New York state senator Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) told PIX11 News in an interview from the state capitol building in Albany. On Wednesday, Klein officially introduced legislation that would make it criminal to bully anyone electronically.

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Let's hope he's not talking through his blow hole!

not_my_kids said:

Okay, what am I missing. SHe jumped in front of a bus. She committed suicide. No one killed her, no one pushed her. She made a choice, based on some mean texts and Facebook postings.

People have been bullied since the beginning of time. Most of them don't kill themselves. They realize that high school doesn't last forever and it gets better. What have we been teaching our children that bullying is enough to drive them to suicide? Or what haven't we been teaching them?

There have always been bullies, there have always been bullying victims. Yes, the internet makes it worse, but it's still just bullying. If parents were protecting, supervising, screeening and restricting their kids online usage, there would be no such thing as cyber bullying.

And if we were engaging our kids daily, talking, prying, pushing then to tell us the truth about their day, there would be far fewer victims.
And where were her parents? If there were signs of instability, which there usually are with "bullycide" victims, why were her parents not watching her every move, screening her texts, deleting her facebook...It seems they have plenty to say now that it is too late.

Bullies are a fact of life. Spiteful, mean people are a fact of life. Meeting them, having to interact with them, and not being able to get away from them are a fact of life. That's what we need to be teaching our kids. That and therapy, even medication when necessary. It takes a lot to cope with the world, and we have to start preparing our children to deal with bullies, because they will be dealing with them in one capacity or another for the rest of their lives.

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Glad you redeemed this post after the first paragraph. MAN that was a cold statement! this poor girl couldn't HELP how she was raised or who raised her (improperly) she was only 15! So, yes I feel for her with every beat of my heart for how she must have been feeling to even THINK about stepping in front of a bus!
We know from experience parenting is NOT what it used to be so maybe other people have to protect these children. Thinking, mature, adults who have the opportunity to stop this cowardly cyber bullying. i can beat the crap out of the girl in third period who pisses me off BUT I have no recourse over the (modsnip) who is harassing me over every social media known to man!!

I think bullying is a hate crime and should be punished as such. moo

Yeah, the first paragraph was a little cold. But I think I'm more angry with her parents than I could ever be with her. Reading the article where her mother gets online and starts pointing fingers, saying that she wishes other people would die just set me off. If one of my children ever takes their lives over something as basic as bullying, especially if I could have stopped it by taking a cell phone and screening a social networking profile, I will probably need to be put on suicide watch myself.

I will have failed miserably at my job as a parent. I wouldn't ever be able to look at Facebook again, let alone jump on the night my daughter dies and start spewing venom. I wish someone would tell the mother that for every finger she points, there's a few always pointing back at her.

No, parenting isn't what it used to be, but in this case, at least from the article linked above, her mother was aware that this was going on. I will cut her the slack that she might not have known the severity, but still. WHen did we start leaving our 15 year olds to handle their own problems. It's just as possible that if she hadn't killed herself, we would be reading about her as a trafficking victim or a runaway, because her online activities obviously were not being watched, and her interactions weren't being monitored.

There are some cases like this where I can understand the parents having no clue. The torment is kept to school hours and the kids are too embarassed to tell their parents and school administrators don't tell them either. They couldn't have known, so they couldn't have stopped it. But, this time, it was preventable, and I blame her parents as much as the bullies. The same as a teen will overreact by jumping in front of a bus, other teens will overreact by torturing someone mercilessly. Teens are notoriously bad at understanding permanence.

MOst of the time, I don't think bullies expect or anticipate anyone dying becuase of their actions. Even with all the news stories, it's classic, "It won't happen to me." But, parents on the other hand, have to really start paying attention to our kids, because every one of the children that have killed themselves were someone's child. It happened to them.

Something is drastically wrong here that kids are allowed to function so completely unsupervised that they can be attacked, even cyber attacked, at home, feet from their parents, and the parents never understand there was danger even present. They have to start digging a little deeper than "How was your day?" and "Doesn't your phone ever get a rest?"

I reported the page as well. Everyday I am more and more amazed, baffled, dismayed and sickened that I am sharing a planet with people whose brains are functioning this way!! Is it that damn hard to just be a decent human being-not a saint-just a decent person??:banghead:

Reported :furious:

I think bullying should be included in the hate crime laws, it's not exactly covered now, but I would cite the Declaration of Independence and our inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. One should not be harangued to death in this country-- and doing it as a group should also carry a punishment for conspiracy to torture. MOO

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime_laws_in_the_United_States"]Hate crime laws in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unalienable_rights"]Natural and legal rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights"]Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]


:maddening:

Bullies are no different from the 9/11 Hijackers, Nazis Henchmen, or Soviet Union NKVD. They are led by a large scale bully (Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin). Only difference is that they killed many and inflicted destruction on a large scale. No offense to anyone affected by them as they were horrible events because I don't want to be seen as trivializing them. I know America is deeply affected by 9/11 even today.

I think to be more effective, we need to create categories of bullies and victims. I do know that antibullying campaigns are attempting to do that - to separate between those bullied at the bottom of the social ranking, vs. those like this Amanda and Phoebe Prince, who were bullied fighting to be at the top of the social heirarchy.

It's two different things, and needs to be addressed differently, IMHO. A bully kicking a bottom rung kid who has no friends is one thing and easy enough to stop, and very easy to see, if administrators want to see it.

Girls vying for the top rung of the social strata, and vying for the attention of the most popular boys is a whole different thing. I wonder if there could even be a different word - "Predatory Competition", for example. I just see it as a completely different dynamic, with a different solution than a bully picking on someone who is just trying to get by without being seen, and isn't in any kind of competition whatsoever with the bully.

Lumping these cases together, it's a little hard to see the dynamic and harder to craft a solution, IMHO.

JeannaT said:

I think to be more effective, we need to create categories of bullies and victims. I do know that antibullying campaigns are attempting to do that - to separate between those bullied at the bottom of the social ranking, vs. those like this Amanda and Phoebe Prince, who were bullied fighting to be at the top of the social heirarchy.

It's two different things, and needs to be addressed differently, IMHO. A bully kicking a bottom rung kid who has no friends is one thing and easy enough to stop, and very easy to see, if administrators want to see it.

Girls vying for the top rung of the social strata, and vying for the attention of the most popular boys is a whole different thing. I wonder if there could even be a different word - "Predatory Competition", for example. I just see it as a completely different dynamic, with a different solution than a bully picking on someone who is just trying to get by without being seen, and isn't in any kind of competition whatsoever with the bully.

Lumping these cases together, it's a little hard to see the dynamic and harder to craft a solution, IMHO.

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See: Profiling Bullies for Active Treatment

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101583"]Profiling bullies for active treatment - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame]

Russell

I think the internet, the ability to "hide" to some extent, even if using your real name, rather than having to deal face to face, has made people, teens in particular, more cruel. Teens have always been cruel, but now they can do it from their cute, chic little devices, all huddled 'round with their "cool" friends to watch how bold and sassy they are. I can just picture it, in the way that the "cool" girls used to huddle in the halls in school and whisper about the less fortunate girl at her locker. Only now instead of whispering, they are able to try to outdo one another by seeing who can post the most "clever", most cruel, most outrageous posts. And everyone reads them, making the victim feel that much more exposed for their perceived "flaws."

The answer for me to cyber bullying is turn off the computer/phone/ipod; delete/block/ignore. Yes, it's simplistic and also amazingly effective (and something people seem to have forgotten how to do).

Someone is calling you names online? Delete yourself or them. See how that worked? Easy wasn't it?

Someone is harrassing you in real life? That's a more difficult issue because you can't always ignore or escape the abuse.

But online? C'mon, let's not make it complicated when it isn't. Get offline and carry on with your life. It really is that simple.

Yes, I am aware that these same bullies will be at school or the mall or on the bus when you get there. That's a different story. But why subject yourself to the 'online' bs when you don't have to? What you don't know/read/hear won't hurt you. In other words, log the $%&* off.

I can't believe there are laws being made about this. I know I seem cruel and unsympathetic. I'm really not. I just do not understand what is so complicated about turning a machine off.

My nieces are on the bully brigade at school. I think it's a fantastic idea. All schools should have a bully brigade.

LadyL said:

The answer for me to cyber bullying is turn off the computer/phone/ipod; delete/block/ignore. Yes, it's simplistic and also amazingly effective (and something people seem to have forgotten how to do).

Someone is calling you names online? Delete yourself or them. See how that worked? Easy wasn't it?

Someone is harrassing you in real life? That's a more difficult issue because you can't always ignore or escape the abuse.

But online? C'mon, let's not make it complicated when it isn't. Get offline and carry on with your life. It really is that simple.

Yes, I am aware that these same bullies will be at school or the mall or on the bus when you get there. That's a different story. But why subject yourself to the 'online' bs when you don't have to? What you don't know/read/hear won't hurt you. In other words, log the $%&* off.

I can't believe there are laws being made about this. I know I seem cruel and unsympathetic. I'm really not. I just do not understand what is so complicated about turning a machine off.

My nieces are on the bully brigade at school. I think it's a fantastic idea. All schools should have a bully brigade.

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Bullying whether it is real life and cyber is the same. Bullying is bullying and it is no different from terrorism, like 9/11, Beslan, Oklahoma City, or Mumbai other than many people got killed.

As for legislation, that is the fault of Lori Drew, who I put in the same category as Casey Anthony, Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin, evil and worthless scumbags of the lowest denomination.

LadyL said:

The answer for me to cyber bullying is turn off the computer/phone/ipod; delete/block/ignore. Yes, it's simplistic and also amazingly effective (and something people seem to have forgotten how to do).

Someone is calling you names online? Delete yourself or them. See how that worked? Easy wasn't it?

Someone is harrassing you in real life? That's a more difficult issue because you can't always ignore or escape the abuse.

But online? C'mon, let's not make it complicated when it isn't. Get offline and carry on with your life. It really is that simple.

Yes, I am aware that these same bullies will be at school or the mall or on the bus when you get there. That's a different story. But why subject yourself to the 'online' bs when you don't have to? What you don't know/read/hear won't hurt you. In other words, log the $%&* off.

I can't believe there are laws being made about this. I know I seem cruel and unsympathetic. I'm really not. I just do not understand what is so complicated about turning a machine off.

My nieces are on the bully brigade at school. I think it's a fantastic idea. All schools should have a bully brigade.

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I just don't think it's that easy nowadays.

Firstly, social networking these days for kids is like using the telephone or hanging out with friends.
For a kid to HAVE to remove himself from these sites is like telling the bullied kid NOT to go to the dance or the party because the bully will be there. It's punishing the person being bullied and making them change THEIR life when they've done nothing wrong.

To merely BLOCK one person doesn't work either since these hackers create a plethora of different profiles in order to cyberbully others.

I agree that kids should definitely tighten their profile security and NOT friend people they don't personally know or like, BUT if a friend of theirs is a friend with the bully.. then if the person being bullied POSTS on the friends wall, the bully can run amok on the post on the friends site.

Lastly, and worst of all... the latest thing is children creating FAKE profiles fraudulently claiming to be the person they want to bully. They'll post a pic of the person and use a derivative of the name and friend all the friends they have in common from the school. here they will berate and slander the person being bullied in a horrible, horrible fashion. FB is way too slow reacting to these kinds of false profiles and by the time they do, the damage is done.

It's gotten truly RIDICULOUS!