‘225’: The Bully Effect

A year ago this month, a 10-year-old boarded a school bus with a loaded gun in his backpack. He brought the weapon to protect himself from two students who had threatened him the previous day. Last October, the mother of a 15-year-old who killed a 16-year-old claimed her son had been bullied by a group of boys that included the shooting victim. At the beginning of December, a third-grader’s mother stormed into a classroom and demanded that her son beat up a student who allegedly bullied him. And just last month, a high school senior with a 3.9 GPA hanged herself. Both her family and youth pastor attribute the suicide to relentless bullying. These local stories and others have parents, educators and civic leaders wondering whether the cyber-assisted national uptick in bullying cases has engulfed Baton Rouge. Nationwide, a spate of teen suicides attributed to relentless bullying has caught the attention of both celebrities and the press. As a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist with more than 25 years of experience, Dr. Joseph A. Grizzaffi says, “From what I have seen in my practice [in working with] children from all different schools and socio-economic levels, it happens everywhere.” Read the complete cover story by Adrian Hirsch in the new issue of 225 here.