Was she the catalyst to a suicide?

Link to the source of this story?

Personally I think she could be guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and she could actually be charged with something if the parents really push for legal action.
A neighbor of mine is in jail right now (has been for about 3–6months), he’s being charged with involuntary manslaughter because he was racing on the freeway with another vehicle and the driver of the other vehicle lost control and crashed into someone else killing them instantly. The driver who crashed is being charged with murder and even though my neighbor wasn’t directly involved per say in the crash, there wouldn’t have been a race without him so they plan on prosecuting him also.
The fact that the girl is probably a minor will definitely be a deciding factor for the DA, she may very well just get a slap on the wrist and kicked out of her school.

Cyber-bulling is a new crime on the books in some regions. My gut says that it is emotional abuse.

There should be a “Bad Guy” site, where proven cases if internet based misdeeds get posted, telling just what the offender did. Sort of like a ten most wanted list, only after they’ve been exposed. Perhaps if the behavior could be publicly posted it would deter such behavior.
It this specific case, somebody should keel-haul that creepy girl. I volunteer the rope.

Legally it’s pretty cut and dry: she didn’t make him kill himself. However rude and embarrassing her behavior is, I can’t think of any crime she committed.

She may have been the catalyst. Maybe she violated some school rules that allow for severe reprisal, perhaps expulsion.

And is @johnpowell right? Are you only concerned about this because it was a female who was the “catalyst.” Surely plenty of males have done similar to emotionally fragile females in high school. We could easily reverse the roles of the genders and find the exact same thing being exacted by boys on emotionally fragile girls. It’s probably common, but it rarely results in suicide.

@bolwerk Didn’t you know? All women bear the taint of original sin. If she’s not guilty of making this boy kill himself, she must be guilty of something. So it hardly matters if she’s responsible or not. Duh.

Statistics actually show that teen girls are being meaner more often. There is a huge increase of teen girls fighting, harrassing, and killing for sport.
I feel that male, female, young, old, anyone using internet for harmful results should face penalties. I sure hope fair laws can soon be drawn.

@pleiades Link to the source of this story?
I am not sure it made the local paper with all the more ”if it bleeds, it leads” stories that has been going on around here. I do not know the young man’s name just his grandfather whom I share a Bible study with.

@johnpowell Again.. Why do you hate woman? Shit like this hurts fluther.
Oh, I am to blame because some real world high schooler punked the grandson of someone I know to the point the youjng man hung himself? I do not know what got your jock in a nut twist. Maybe I should have you speak to the young man’s family where you can give the young lady a bouquet of roses because to speak of what she did is hurting women; sure the deseased young man’s parents would love that. If I were not a godly man I might call you a redacted, I guess I coulkd use heartless and cold-blooded with extreme prejudice.

@bolwerk And is @johnpowell right?
Right, I choose to ask it not because it affected a person I know somewhat well, but because I was waiting like a hawk for some girl to clown his grandson so he would kill himself. Hell, to make women look bad I might even be thought of as having put her up to it. You people slay me……

It is cyber bullying and she should pay. I am sure that they are refining laws regards the Internet, I really hope they are refining laws for the Internet and she should be brought to book.

about cyber bullying and gender

As a girl who was bullied by other girls in high school, I’m sure, if I was going to school today, they would use the internet and cell phones to make my life hell. Cyber bulling is a real issue today and my kid has been a victim. The school, thankfully, takes a zero tolerance stance on it, and anything reported is taken very seriously and the kids know that they won’t get away with it. She should be up on charges. Absolutely no doubt, according to your version of this story.

As for @johnpowell ‘s comment, Of course you aren’t to blame and that is a odd assumption to make on your part (not john’s) but what we always find interesting with you is the subject matter you chose to bring up.

What I have to work with is the third or fourth or fifth party version of the story told by a known misogynist. I’m going to withhold judgment on the girl unless you can provide a corroborating source.

Acts of cruelty, in person or on the internet, are especially harmful to adolescents. Some individuals are more emotionally vulnerable to social denigration and are more likely to choose to escape their despair than endure their feelings of worthlessness. While I cannot imagine any justification for someone acting in the manner of the girl described in the question, I do not think that the threat of punishment for such behavior would alter one’s motivation to act this way. Bullies are in need of psychological counseling. They need to learn compassion, and why they feel the need to act in inhumane ways. If laws are written to deal with this problem, incarnation would be ineffective. Instead, courts should mandate psychiatric evaluation and therapy.

What @Seek said.

I am sure that that girl is sufferring from “guilt and remorse” as we speak now?
Let us hope that ‘she” will not succumb to the same fate as he did?
I hope that she has learned that words and actions do “Hurt” people, just as if she herself stabbed him.
Certainly some form of justice and reformation should occurr, however perhaps hidden from all of us now IS her response?
How would you feel if YOU were in her place right now?
Perhaps in the past WE all have inadvertantly ( or in this case overtly) had hurt so much to cause an innocent life to be taken.

@cazziecazzie As for @johnpowell ‘s comment, Of course you aren’t to blame and that is a odd assumption to make on your part (not john’s) but what we always find interesting with you is the subject matter you chose to bring up.
It was more of an ironic maybe sarcastic but yet serious response, seeing I would not go beyond him, and I am sure a few others, thinking I would put her up to it just to have something to bash women on, as if I don’t have better things to do. The fact he seems to forget, is there is a family who lost a child and a grandfather who lost a grandson, and all he cares is that this girl is being picked on my me: wow….I mean WOW.

@Seek What I have to work with is the third or fourth or fifth party version of the story told by a known misogynist. I’m going to withhold judgment on the girl unless you can provide a corroborating source.
Good thing I don’t need your validation. You can take no stand at all, not that it is expected, it wasn’t your child you found hung in his bedroom, much less knowing any misogynist; because it certainly isn’t me, if you think so, you best seek better clairvoyance because yours is greatly faulty.

@Bill1939 They need to learn compassion, and why they feel the need to act in inhumane ways.
If they do not know, or have not learned empathy, sympathy, or compassion why is that? I am tempted to say look at how some of the adults here act when they hear some young man is dead because of what she said to him, they are forgetting he is dead to try to hammer some political talking points.

@Inspired_2write I am sure that that girl is sufferring from “guilt and remorse” as we speak now?
I wonder that myself. Then again, would she have any more remorse than the boy who shot another over some bad deal weeks ago? I know of some fairly cold characters who bragged they would smoke (kill) anyone who cheated them, or tried to rob them of their dope. I guess it would depend on how much she valued human life.

What state did it happen in?

^ California

Can’t find anything for a teen male suicide in California in the last month. Guess we’ll never get another side of the story.

^ Maybe the latest shooting in Richmond California took the lead…..what is one boy hanging himself when you can have a gang shooting or a drug deal gone bad. Politicians can use that better come election time. Lets pray if any of your children should hang themselves, the news be all over it so everyone can believe it actually happened, or better yet, not blame them if they were bullied.

I blamed no one. I said I’m witholding judgment until I have more information than you gave. Your account is obviously biased and thus not a good source.

Biased how, by accounting what he did and what she did? I certainly don’t remember calling her a skank, bitch, bully, modern, liberated, heartless or anything. I made no comment on him either, I did not cal him weak-minded, brave, justified, sweet, a sissy, or anything. Point out what line or phrase where you seen bias so all the Collective can see it and judge if it is a correct assumption or one you just created for yourself.

When he got bold enough to approach her in the real world to ask her out she clowned him in front of everyone. She told him that she was joking and she never liked him, that he was a loser and should go hang himself

^ Were you there? Was the person that told you about it there? Is there a recording of this event?

If everything else you said is true, you have a recorded Facebook friendship of two teenagers in the throes of puppy love, or at least a moderately affectionate friendship.

The rest is unverifiable gossip.

That happens to thousands of guys/girls in high school every year, I’m sure and they don’t go home and hang themselves. Obviously there was more going on and it is all really sad. Kids need to learn to be nicer people.

I can answer the question without regard to previous questions the poster has asked: yes, if this is all about real people who exist and this scenario played out, she is a (I don’t know about the) catalyst for his suicide. And my original answer covers the legalities about as well as anyone did.

But @Seek and others are correct that the question involves a level of direct, personal knowledge about the boy’s inner motives (he was “bold enough”) that doesn’t exist for the girl. Curious! ‘Cause the legal answer is pretty obvious to anyone with a cursory understanding of law. At the very most, she might be civilly liable for her actions.

^ Catalyst was the best word to use in the context of the question. Had I said “reason” people would have been more apt to believe that was a replacement for “blame”. They have a hard time now believing that she had anything to do with his decision to end his life. With that logic, I guess that case where the roommates taped a guy having a gay affair and posted it to social media had nothing to do with him jumping off a bridge, or whatever he did.

I don’t see anything wrong with the word catalyst. I just don’t see anything interesting about the story. The question could be summed up as “Is a person who humiliates somebody criminally, civilly, or morally liable for that somebody injuring herself/himself?” The rest of the post is bait for people to react to – a kind of bait you’ve posted before, so people are reacting to you instead of the question.

There are incredible hurdles to a prosecution. If it can be shown she knew he would kill himself and she acted as she did to make him himself, it could be premeditated – therefore, murder. This could be evidenced by a text or facebook message (“lol i will make that faggit kill himself”). But what we probably have here is a cruel teenage prank that was intended to embarrass him.

What else do you want to know? Whether someone would defend the actions of the person who humiliated him? I doubt it.

@bolwerk I just don’t see anything interesting about the story. The question could be summed up as “Is a person who humiliates somebody criminally, civilly, or morally liable for that somebody injuring herself/himself?” The rest of the post is bait for people to react to – a kind of bait you’ve posted before, so people are reacting to you instead of the question.
The details may not help you, may not help some others, however, some cannot even answer without quantifying the severity or the type of humiliation. Maybe they bait themselves because rather than take the question of face value they always think conspiracy of some sort. Would they go off on a tangent if they were asked why white bread gets such a bum rap? No, they would answer it off what nutritional facts they know of or not, not believe the asker was secretly attacking bran muffins or something.

Whether the story that @Hypocrisy_Central based the questions on is real or fiction does not change the issues of the questions: “Was she the catalyst of the young man hanging himself? Would he have done it anyhow if he was unhappy? Did the young lady do anything that she could be punished for, legally or civilly?”

While it might be likely that he would have eventually committed suicide anyway, the fact that she “clowned him in front of everyone” was the catalyst. I do not think that she should be “punished” for the consequences of her action. However, she should be made to understand her responsibility for his death and to learn why she acted that way. This could be mandated by law to undergo psychological therapy when a judgement by a court determines that the facts of this instant prove her action to be a contributing factor in his death.

@Hypocrisy_Central asked me, “If they do not know, or have not learned empathy, sympathy, or compassion why is that? I am tempted to say look at how some of the adults here act when they hear some young man is dead because of what she said to him, they are forgetting he is dead to try to hammer some political talking points.” Why or how it was that she had not learned compassion is the question. Researching her life’s social history may be able to identify how her lack of humanity was possible. It is unfortunate that some Fluthers are using this issue to further their political agenda.

There is no “fact” that this girl did anything at all.

If we’re talking about a hypothetical situation in which this elaborate practical joke was played out, than I’ll ask further questions about the hypothetical situation in order to come up with a hypothetical answer.

If we are talking about the unfortunate death of an actual child with a goal to cast blame on another child for that death, than I will continue to suspend judgment until and unless I have some verification of what occurred.

If this is the actual death of an actual child, how did @Hypocrisy_Central learn about the events that took place? Where did his source hear about it? If his source was a grieving family member, then their account isn’t necessarily reliable, because it is tainted with grief and blame-seeking. That is why I searched for a newspaper article on the situation. I was hoping that there was an independent party that referenced the bullying issue.

Things that are in print are verifiable. I granted the Facebook relationship, because if it happened one can simply look on the Facebook page and see what went down. But there was no bullying through Facebook. There was an affectionate friendship through Facebook, if @Hypocrisy_Central‘s account is true.

But I cannot pass judgment on something there is no evidence for. I certainly cannot blame a 15 year old girl for causing the death of her friend based on a game of Telephone.

@Bill1939Bill1939 It is unfortunate that some Fluthers are using this issue to further their political agenda.
Be it we do not agree often but you were on point I believe. Sad some can’t even get past themselves to realize a family lost a child, I guess when it is their child, they would have a different tune and might bet down right indignant if people blew it off because there was no smoking obits to confirm it.

@Seek If this is the actual death of an actual child, how did @Hypocrisy_Central learn about the events that took place?
IF you had not been abler to figure it out, the grandfather told of the events.

If his source was a grieving family member, then their account isn’t necessarily reliable, because it is tainted with grief and blame-seeking.
It will be interesting to see how long this policy last through other questions posted here; I suspect it will be soon abandoned.

But there was no bullying through Facebook. There was an affectionate friendship through Facebook, if @Hypocrisy_Central‘s account is true.
Someone pretends to like someone using Facebook or social media as the vehicle, for the purpose of a joke, where in Sam hell do you see an ”affectionate relationship”? My how one’s motives shoots them right in the foot every time.

* Edit *

This is stupid. I’m done.

@Bill1939

Whether the story is real or fictional does not change the fact that are is not sufficient detail in the story to determine whether or not the girl is at any kind of fault here. All we have to go on is potentially heavily biased hearsay.

“Potentially heavily biased hearsay”....reminds me of fluther during an election.

All we have to go on is potentially heavily biased hearsay.
Until it is a member of your family then you expect everyone to listen and not doubt your family member was just a weak milk toast that offed themselves for nothing; in fact I bet you would want to fight if they even suggested it.

<montypython_burn_witch.mov>

@Hypocrisy_Central “Until it is a member of your family then you expect everyone to listen and not doubt your family member was just a weak milk toast that offed themselves for nothing; in fact I bet you would want to fight if they even suggested it.”

Appeal to emotion.

@Darth_Algar please note that I did not assign blame to the (hypothetical or actual) girl in my responses to @Hypocrisy_Central‘s opening question: “Was she the catalyst to a suicide?” Bullying, verbal or physical, can be a catalyst for an act of violence against others or one’s self. While bullying may be (and has been) common in children (and adults), it demonstrates that the bully has developmental problems that should be addressed.

@Bill1939

Yes, I noted that before.

What’s the point of answering a question just to say that you can’t answer the question? Even if it were front page news it wouldn’t give you any more details than what you’ve read here. When have you ever heard the bully’s side of the story? News reports are based on the information given by the police (which would be very little if it were an ongoing investigation, especially one involving minors) and interviews with the family, maybe a witness to her telling the boy to kill himself if the reporter feels like putting in the effort. Even then the witness could be lying, right? so unless you are going to personally interview the girl (unlikely that her parents would consent to that anyway) you would never know her version of the events.

This is not a question. This. Is. Not. A. Question.

@cheebdragon What’s the point of answering a question just to say that you can’t answer the question?
That in itself is a good question. However I believe some never really intended to answer the question or even got beyond their political agenda to even have any sympathy for the boy’s parents even if the girl’s comment did not push him over an edge, they just want to defend her because they believe I am trying to be against her.

@Hypocrisy_Central: you didn’t ask for sympathy. You asked if she was the catalyst.

^ you didn’t ask for sympathy. You asked if she was the catalyst.
So in the process of defending her, people should be cold-hearted not to consider a family lost a child, is that what you are saying? If so, where else does that apply to just forget about the victim or the victim’s family and just stick with the facts?

@Hypocrisy_Central ” If so, where else does that apply to just forget about the victim or the victim’s family and just stick with the facts?”

In court, for example.

^ No, whenever it is discusses, court, the news, beauty parlor, coffee house, bus stop, online blog, anywhere.

What?

If you were looking for sympathy, ask for sympathy.

You’re looking to burn a witch in anger and make us part of that. No.

@Hypocrisy_Central: nobody defended her either. You didn’t ask us to.

@bolwerk nobody defended her either. You didn’t ask us to
Right, I did not ask anyone to accuse or excuse her, but because people thought I was trying to blame her, that “I hate women nonsense”, they seem to have forgotten about a person is dead. I simply put out if anyone thought her doing something he felt very humiliated behind played any part in it. I have heard of news articles and stories before where people have killed themselves because of direct or indirect actions of others on social media.

@Hypocrisy_Central ” I simply put out if anyone thought her doing something he felt very humiliated behind played any part in it.”

To which people stated they didn’t have enough info to say one way or the other. To which you got pissy and started saying “politics”.

^ Then they should say they don’t know, especially if they have no ideal that anything such as that could potentially hurt someone psychologically. They can make educated guess on other matter, I see them do it all of the time, but if they could not here, just say so, not that there had to be more evidence one way or another.

^ Still missing the point by a mile I see.

@Hypocrisy_Central: ~150,000 people die every day, and very few of them make it into Valhalla. Nobody is going to get particularly upset about this unless they have some personal reason to such as contempt for women, and that’s assuming they believe there is a strong possibility this scenario isn’t entirely hypothetical.