Girl's suicide increases urgency to prevent teen bullying
Phoebe Prince's suicide raises questions about Massachusetts schools' role in preventing harassment. Forty-one other states, including Washington, have anti-bullying laws of varying strength.
Phoebe Prince, 15
Phoebe Prince's family had moved recently to Massachusetts from a small town in Ireland. She entered high school last fall.
Prosecutors and classmates say the taunting started when the 15-year-old freshman had a brief relationship with a popular senior boy. Some students reportedly called her an "Irish slut," knocked books out of her hands and sent her threatening text messages, day after day.
Prince hanged herself from a stairwell at her home in January, leading to charges Monday against nine teenagers, including two boys charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls charged with stalking, criminal harassment and violating Prince's civil rights.
The charges are an unusually sharp legal response to the problem of adolescent bullying, which increasingly is conducted in cyberspace as well as in the schoolyard and has raised questions about educators' role in prevention.
South Hadley High School officials won't be charged, even though the district attorney determined the girl's