An Eight Year Old Boy Committed Suicide...
by Dr. Michael Flanagan
An eight year old boy named Gabriel Tye committed suicide on January 26th. Eight years old. As tragic as that fact is the events surrounding his death are almost worse.
School surveillance video shows the boy had been knocked unconscious by other students in a locker room, and laid there unattended for almost eight minutes. In that time almost a dozen other students, including the children responsible for the assault, stood around. Some even appearing to laugh at and kick him while he lay motionless.
There was a teacher right outside the door, but none of the student witnesses alerted him or called for help. When the school staff eventually arrived and discovered the boy, they apparently had no idea what happened. A school nurse assisted the child, but, they did not inform his parent of his being found unconscious, saying instead that he had fainted.
The child was taken by his mother to the emergency room later that night because he was vomiting. The school did not inform his mother that the child was found unconscious, and the subsequent symptoms associated with a concussion. This assault happened right next to the gym, in the locker room. All physical education teachers and school administrators are aware of concussion protocols. Apparently this mother was not made aware of the seriousness of a concussion. She kept the boy home from school the next day, but allowed him to return the following day.
And that is how this story might have ended, another child who was the victim of bullying in our schools. Except for the fact that this child hung himself that night.
A local Cincinnati newspaper requested that the surveillance camera Badass Teachers Association: An Eight Year Old Boy Committed Suicide...by Dr. Michael Flanagan: