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News: 11-year-old boy takes his life due to extreme bullying
Member Since: 9/25/2001
Posts: 26,816
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11-year-old boy takes his life due to extreme bullying
Boy bullied to death, dad says
SOURCE: National Post, Toronto Sun
Quote:
Pam Wilson sat Wednesday in her spacious home in a suburb north of Toronto, next to her grand piano, surrounded by her cats and photographs of her grandson, Mitchell Wilson, 11, who spent his summers at her cottage and called her "Mimi."
Earlier in the day she had attended the Durham Regional Courthouse in Oshawa for the trial of the 12-year-old accused of bullying her grandson, knocking the boy's face into the sidewalk and stealing an iPhone that the boy carried.
But her grandson, whom she called "Mitch," was not at the court hearing. He took his own life three weeks ago, Sept. 6.
On Labour Day, the eve of the first day of school, he said goodnight to his father, Craig Wilson, and his stepmother, at their home in Pickering, east of Toronto, and then lay down in his bed with a plastic bag over his head. His father found him in the morning.
The bullying that her grandson suffered at his school, Westcreek Public School in Pickering, led the boy to lose his will to live, his grandmother said, breaking her silence on the case on Wednesday.
"He said to me, 'Mimi, my biggest issue is that I can't protect myself, and if a man cannot protect himself, then he is not a man,'" recalled Ms. Wilson.
"At the cottage in July, he said, 'If I have to go back to that school, I'll kill myself.'"
The last time she saw her grandson was the Saturday of Labour Day Weekend.
"He called me up and asked me to come over for a barbecue," she recalls. "We feel he had a plan. It was the kind of thing you do when you are leaving this planet."
At her grandson's house, she said, she suggested taking the dog for a walk. "Craig, my son, said, 'We can't find the leash.' And then in the morning, he found the leash, wrapped around Mitch's neck, holding the plastic bag in place."
Three years ago, Mitch lost his mother, who died of skin cancer. Then last year he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.
Doctors told the boy that he could lengthen his life if he walked continually, to lose weight and stay strong.
With the help of his stepmother, he made huge progress, his grandmother recalled.
"She knocked 80 pounds off him," Ms. Wilson said. "The kid started to get more active, he went to karate, he went for a walk six times a day, until he got jumped by those two boys."
Last November, Mitch walked a few blocks from his home one evening and noticed two boys following him. He called his stepmother, Tiffany Usher, who rushed to the scene in her car, and found her stepson lying down, where the boys had pushed him, smashing his face into the sidewalk.
"I chased down these youngsters and got back the phone," Ms. Usher said Wednesday, in a brief interview. She declined to say more, noting that, with Mitch gone, she is the key Crown witness in its case against the boy.
Ms. Wilson, the grandmother, recalled that after that assault, her grandson lost his self-confidence; once, when his stepmother drove him to school, he stood banging his head into the van, yelling, "Help me!"
The judge on Wednesday adjourned the case to Nov. 21 for trial.
Ms. Wilson said the Wilson family has asked the Crown to request that Mitch's assailant, who cannot be named because he is a youth, be removed from the care of his mother, and placed with a foster family.
"My family feel that he's also a victim," Ms. Wilson said. "He's a lost kid. He hasn't been loved, hasn't been cared for. We don't want to be a lynch squad. We want him to do community work with disabled people. All we are trying to do is help this kid understand that his life is going to be zip if he keeps on the road he is on."
As a therapist herself, she remains haunted by the thoughts of her grandson taking his own life.
"That was really tough for me, that I didn't see this coming, as a professional," she said. "I never dreamt that an 11-year-old would do this."
Still, Ms. Wilson said she hopes some good can come of her grandson's death if it reminds everyone to keep an eye out for bullies.
"It takes a catastrophe to bring things into the limelight," she says.
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Our world is disastrous right now. I'm disgusted.
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Member Since: 2/23/2010
Posts: 4,577
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Isnt it weird that every death now is associated to bullying? Is it that bad in the states or are people looking to honor their families?
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Member Since: 9/23/2009
Posts: 26,796
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Everyone is at fault here.
The parents should have read the signs sooner, just take the boy out of school and enroll him elsewhere.
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Member Since: 11/11/2010
Posts: 28,420
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How many more people have to ****ing die before somebody does something about this?!
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Banned
Member Since: 11/24/2009
Posts: 61,404
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The media is really on the bullying bandwagon right now
I remember a few Summers ago it was shark attacks.
And before that child kidnappings.
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Member Since: 8/16/2011
Posts: 13,397
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What the hell is going on!!?
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Member Since: 8/22/2011
Posts: 27,495
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RIP
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Member Since: 5/17/2010
Posts: 21,708
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Quote:
Originally posted by Nicole
The media is really on the bullying bandwagon right now
I remember a few Summers ago it was shark attacks.
And before that child kidnappings.
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I remember that. It was a mess.
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Member Since: 9/18/2011
Posts: 30,431
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Ummmm why don't the parents ever transfer the child to another school? I don't get it....
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Member Since: 7/21/2007
Posts: 17,522
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Tragic.
So sad about his mother dying and him having an illness. Poor family.
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Member Since: 7/30/2010
Posts: 20,632
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For an 11 year old to even know about suicide & have suicidal thoughts is sad.
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Member Since: 9/23/2009
Posts: 26,796
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Quote:
Originally posted by amandatheafter
Isnt it weird that every death now is associated to bullying? Is it that bad in the states or are people looking to honor their families?
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This happened in Canada.
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Member Since: 12/27/2010
Posts: 6,041
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Are people just starting to speak out? Because I know for a fact that the bullying isn't getting worse.
It's been going on since the dawn of time. Confused.
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Member Since: 11/24/2006
Posts: 24,963
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rainbow
Our world is disastrous right now. I'm disgusted.
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Right now?
Where have you been the last 20 years?
I'll probably get reported, but this whole love yourself **** is only making things worse.
For example, how Gaga treated the Jamie situation. I can see her intentions, but I don't think it's the right way do it.
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Member Since: 9/23/2009
Posts: 26,796
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Honestly, these people need to get a backbone. I'm sorry, but if I'm getting bullied - I'm not going to stand for that ****. Why people think dying solves their problems is beyond me. All this ****ing melodrama these days needs to stop.
Like he is the only one in the world who has ever gotten bullied? Like he couldn't raise his voice a speak out to a teacher, parent, counselor, etc...??
And bullying is no secret, why the parent's seemingly did NOTHING until the boy killed himself is beyond me. After being diagnosed with a disease and his mother dying -- the poor boy probably needed some counseling too.
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Member Since: 6/10/2011
Posts: 6,946
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Quote:
On Labour Day, the eve of the first day of school, he said goodnight to his father, Craig Wilson, and his stepmother, at their home in Pickering, east of Toronto, and then lay down in his bed with a plastic bag over his head. His father found him in the morning.
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I know it's not the point, but... I don't think I get it - he wrapped the plastic bag around his head, is that it? Ugh, that is atrocious!
So sad.
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Member Since: 11/17/2010
Posts: 12,926
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An 11 Year Old...
Way too ****ing young.
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Member Since: 1/3/2010
Posts: 21,098
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Member Since: 2/11/2008
Posts: 10,964
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Quote:
Originally posted by Nicole
The media is really on the bullying bandwagon right now
I remember a few Summers ago it was shark attacks.
And before that child kidnappings.
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!!!
Suicides happen everyday in many parts of the world, and now they are TRYING to report each one of them and "coincidentally" all of them are bullying cases.
I think we understand that they want to make a law to really stop it, but damn, there's no need for these things. It only confuses people.
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Member Since: 6/10/2011
Posts: 6,946
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Quote:
Originally posted by ifyouseekLEM
Honestly, these people need to get a backbone. I'm sorry, but if I'm getting bullied - I'm not going to stand for that ****. Why people think dying solves their problems is beyond me. All this ****ing melodrama these days needs to stop.
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I think that sadness and anger sometimes tend to blind people.
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