Last month, 12 year old Rebecca Sedwick killed herself after three years of relentless bullying at school and online by two girls from her school. Rebecca climbed a platform at an abandoned cement plant near her home in central Florida and jumped to her death. The investigation into the bullying was ongoing until yesterday when one of the accused bullies posted the following message on her Facebook account:
"Yes ik, I bullied Rebecca nd she killed her self but IDGAF!"
This message prompted local police to arrest Guadalupe Shaw and charge her with a felony in Rebecca's death. The authorities said they could not in good conscience leave this girl out there knowing she could be tormenting someone else. Shaw and her family both claim that her facebook account had been hacked... authorities claim that it is unlikely that this is the case based on the history of bullying from the accused.
At this point I could lecture you on the dangers of bullying, I could tell you that it's not cool to pick on people you feel are different or weak in some way, I could tell you that bullies are just weak insecure people lashing out at random... I could tell you all that, but you all have heard that before.
The fact of the matter is that these situations will continue to happen until you change it. The bullies are among you... they are your classmates, your friends, and maybe even yourselves. You need to call these people out on what they are doing, you need to defend what is right and point out what is wrong... you need to finally recognize that there is a right way to treat people and a wrong way...
Until you all stop being entertained by the actions of bullies, or looking the other way when you see or hear someone being bullied nothing will change. Adults can lecture you but they cannot change how you behave... only you have the power to do that.
Click Here for Dateline Hidden Camera Series on Bullying...