Unfinished Lives

Bullied Gay Teen Dies 9 Days After Suicide Attempt

Seth Walsh, posted by teen friends on Facebook

Tehachapi, CA – A 13-year-old gay teen boy, bullied beyond endurance, died nine days after hanging himself from a tree in his backyard.  Seth Walsh, a former student at Jacobsen Middle School, was tormented incessantly for years by school bullies for being gay and bisexual, according to KGET-TV News.  The bullying and name-calling got so bad that Seth’s parents pulled him out of Jacobsen and independently schooled him, but the bullies follow Seth with their mission to harass him.  The torment shifted from school to a park nearby Seth’s home in Kern County, California, according to friends.  They say he never fully revealed how desperate the verbal attacks made him feel, but instead kept his despair bottled up inside himself until he couldn’t stand another day.  On Sunday, September 19, he quietly went into the backyard, and hanged himself from the limb of a tree.  When Seth was found hanging from the branch, he was unconscious and barely alive. Parameds rushed him to a nearby medical center where he hung onto life supported by a ventilator and other heroic measures.  Nine days of struggle later, on Tuesday, September 28, Seth died.  Classmates from Jacobsen Middle School said to KGET-TV that though the school administration had an anti-bullying program in place, nobody at the school offered Seth any real guidance or protection from the bullying they knew he was going through.  Tehachapi police investigators interviewed students suspected of teasing and bullying the 13-year-old for being gay, but now say that nothing they did to Seth constituted a crime.  They will not be charged in his death, though the intensity of their torment was likely the factor most responsible for Seth’s desperate attempt to kill himself.  Police Chief Jeff Kermode told KGET, “Several of the kids that we talked to broke down into tears. They had never expected an outcome such as this.” A memorial service for Seth was held at the First Baptist Church of Tehecapi on Friday afternoon.  Towelroad reports that suicide prevention counselor Daryl Thiesen does not believe that acts of contrition and sorrow by the kids responsible for bullying Seth, or an outpouring of grief from the school and community now, will break through what Thiesen calls the “culture of silence” surrounding anti-gay bullying in the schools. Students who know about bullying incidents, or teens who are the victims of school bullying, are driven into silence about it out of peer pressure and the fear of being labeled “snitches” or “tattlers.”  From all reports, Seth was a sweet-natured youth who loved life and just wanted to be allowed to live it.  Deeply ingrained homophobia in the school and the town influenced those prone to bullying to harass this ordinary, loving, so-so-very-young kid to death.  It is good that friends and neighbors are rallying to support Seth’s family now.  What must be done to prevent further senseless loss of life among our young is an all-out effort to teach tolerance, acceptance, and anti-violence in our schools, churches, and families.

October 1, 2010 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bullying in schools, California, gay teens, harassment, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ suicide, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bullying in schools, California, gay teens, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, LGBT suicide, LGBTQ teen suicide prevention, perpetrators | 14 Comments