Looks more like dominance behavior to me. Boss screws secretary, Captain screws private, wealthy homeowner screws the maid. Ages old behavior. It would be interesting to know if it does occur more or less often now. Certainly 100 hundred years ago, those in the weaker position had fewer options while, maybe, moral strictures were stronger. I suspect it was just as frequent.
Steve

Having worked in a school for a number of years I would agree with steve2. The issue is indeed a power struggle, as one set of students seeks to exert power over the other. Whether it is the situation Phoebe Prince faced or the one that Hope Witsell faced in Florida, the common thread is about power.
Re-establishing the idea of community shame is next to impossible, I believe. That horse ran from the barn years ago, and in some ways that was not necessarily a bad thing.
I don’t know that I have a good answer for this. I’ve seen anti-bullying efforts come and go in schools (Olweus being one I am somewhat familiar with), and the success rate is mixed.

Power is an excellent way to look at these situations. There was always bullying and probably always will be. We seem to be hardwired for heirarchical structures socially, but here’s what I think is missing and is more important than shame. What we are truly missing is the old concept of noblesse oblige. Those with the power are restrained in the exercise thereof in regards to the powerless because they know that there but for the grace of God go I. The tormentors of Phoebe definitely lacked that attitude.

Sorry for the long post here, but I feel strongly about this.
“internalized cultural restraints that would have stopped or at least slowed that sort of thing down in the past are cast aside as oppressive relics.”
Insofar as this may be what caused school officials to look at the behavior as not unusual, or even acceptable, I agree with you.
I must say that those school officials failed and that, to a large degree, bullying IS an administrative problem. When you’re in authority in a school you’re a leader: a thought leader, an opinion leader, a leader by example. You’re responsible for creating and maintaining a culture in the school. Those officials were responsible for cracking down on the bullies and supporting Phoebe Prince. They weren’t the only responsible ones – parents, families, etc. were too – but the school failed Phoebe Prince, pure and simple.
And the “missed signals” is B.S.-ification of a high order – they knew about the behavior and didn’t do enough. If they didn’t know the complete scope, they should have. It’s their school. There were no missed signals, just a failure to take them seriously. It’s like a CEO expressing shock over widespread problems: sorry, pal, it’s your company. Ignorance is not an excuse.
If those school officials don’t stand up for ALL of their students, and aren’t committed to teaching them proper behavior, social skills, and a rudimentary sense of right and wrong, they have no business in the school system. How the heck are the bullies or the weak supposed to know the code of acceptable school behavior if nobody is teaching them?
Parents can and should (and mostly do) do a lot, but there are different rules at school and different behaviors and norms. If the wider culture does indeed view some bullying as acceptable – which I’m not convinced of – than we need to get about the business of changing that. For all of the supposed acceptance of bullying, our school systems have quite the set of grievance mechanisms in place.
Sexual harassment, hate speech, speech codes generally, zero-tolerance policies and all of that – there are sophisticated mechanisms in place to deal with them in most schools.
While I will not place blame solely on the school officials in this case, I have little sympathy for them being raked over the coals – they should be because they failed miserably and were apparently oblivious to it.
Full disclosure: I work for a small Christian school for students with learning differences. I take seriously my responsibility as a teacher, mentor, and as someone who is responsible for the culture of the school. Moreso, I take Christ’s words seriously: “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

For the record, Rod, there is no evidence that Miss Prince slept with a lot of people, and we shouldn’t be flattering the kids who tormented her to death by pretending that she did.
The sad story of Miss Prince shows that young people can be plenty evil to one another, and that’s really all it shows.

We must be careful to think of this not so much as an issue of order vs disorder but an ongoing modulation of partial order. The temptation to behold the past through rosy classes is belied by the myriad ways the so-called “traditional order” begat horrors of its own.
One book that will make your toes curl in this regard is last year’s Pulitzer winner, “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II”, by Douglas A. Blackmon. There you can behold how a society that has been torn apart in ways we cannot imagine quickly (through the use of legal fictions and local goverment that was corrupt root and branch) reinstates its prior culture with nary a Potemkin village of disguise. What it took to dismantle this reinstated culture was an immense work of decades, and there are still those alive who object to that dismantling.

Hector, as I recall from the several articles out at the time, Miss Prince had a relationship with a boy in the clique that harrassed her. There was some chatter about statutory rape, so we don’t know if sex was involved, consensual or not. It might be a good idea for all of us to reread those articles, I know I should.
The school day is not different from society at large. A better description would be a subset of it. It embodies those structures with which we all deal: bureaucracy, hierarchy (pecking order), authority, responsibility and commitment. What it lacks in comparison is recourse: Children are routinely judged arbitrarily — I am completely hostile to the entire “zero-tolerance” approach — there is no such thing as due process even at its most basic, and even teachers have their noses rubbed into the bullying culture with union hierarchies, teacher-admin “relationships”, and seniority-privilege issues.
I know a bit about the psychology of suicide (details on request, but be careful what you ask for). It is founded in an overwhelming feeling of powerless, hopeless frustration that nothing will ever change. I don’t mean to point a causal finger at any given school situation, but children are taught that they are powerless every day as they witness bullying, watch adults witness it without taking any action, and see themselves cast as villains when they speak up about it.
Children learn right and wrong almost immediately: Being hurt by someone is wrong, having someone step in and stop the hurt is right. By the time they reach Miss Prince’s age, they have a pretty good idea of how often the wrongs done to them are made right. Bullies are the next step “up”: They preempt any chance of being hurt by hurting others in order to make them afraid.

“True liberty must be ordered liberty.”
As concisely put as I’ve seen that concept described. There will always be powerful leaders. There will always be meek followers. It is up to some kind of authoritative leadership to prevent abuse and chaos. But the greater the people themselves are morally principled, the less the need for authoritative controls to achieve the same social result.
There was enough “disorder” within South Hadley High School, from the authority, leadership and followers, that a bullying/mobbing tipping point was achieved. Switzerland became Somalia.

Insofar as Caldwell is suggesting that bullying did not really occur prior to the 1960s, he’s plainly wrong. But I don’t think that’s what he’s getting at. What he’s saying, I think, is that the culture of bullying, especially sexually-focused bullying, in the Prince case is best explainable as what happens when the internalized cultural restraints that would have stopped or at least slowed that sort of thing down in the past are cast aside as oppressive relics.
Like steve2 and others, I have doubts that things are any worse now than they were in the past. Consider the 1950s and early 60s (pre-modern degradation, as some would put it…). If you look at popular literature set in that period (Say West Side Story or Stephen King’s autobiographical the Body or works of S.E. Hinton, although there are hundreds of others) you will infer that bullying and violence across the entire class spectrum was as bad or worse than it is now.
This is not a new problem. It only seems new because we actually hear about it now.

Harassment, or to use the antiquated name bullying, has now gone 24/7. Whereas in the past people could be free of a fellow student or co-worker once they were home, that is no longer true. People can be harassed 24/7 via text, cell phone calls, twitter, and social media. Tag team attacks can easily be set up. While our technology has made great leaps in improving technology, our morals and manners have not necessarily gone along for the ride. Parents should also be active in monitoring their kids online experience.
Harassment or peer abuse, is as damaging mentally to some as child or spousal abuse. The same social stigma should be attached to peer abuse. We live in interesting times with all of these technical advances changing the speed at which we communicate. The old saying is it takes a village to raise a child, but nowadays it also takes a virtual village.

This is regarding the update. If the victim had been a male instead, and slept with the equivalent of two football players (cheerleaders), the boy would have received kudos from his peers. There still exists a double standard, although that may slowly be changing.

Rod, what the defense lawyer in Phoebe Prince bullying suicide case will say I imagine when he explains the “new information” in the case….
”Ladies and gentlemen of the public opinion jury,
First of all, may the soul of Phoebe Prince rest in eternal peace in the bosom of God Almight who made this world and all of us in it. That said, there is more here than meets the eye. Yes, Phoebe was bullied, harrassed and abused. My client will explain how it happened. It’s not a pretty picture. My client regrets her actions. All the kids in the bully gang do. They do now. They made a big mistake and they will be punished for it, first by the courts of law, second by the judgment of God Almighty and his Second in Command, Jesus H. Christ.
So what happeened? Well, to make a long story short: Phoebe Price was complicit in all this, without her knowing where all this would lead. She is the victim here, yes. But in fact, she initated the sexual encounters with the two boys, and if she were here, she would explain in her own words how it all came to be. She wanted love, affection, popularity, to be accepted. She went about in her own wrong, tortured way, but that is all she knew how to do. She acted. The boys and the girls who bullied her acted also in a very wrong way and they must be held accountable.
Tomorrow, the ghost of Phoebe Prince will appear here in court and speak for herself. I recommond that those of you here today also attend the court session tomorrow. Phoebe will tell the truth, from her point of view, and it won’t be a pretty picture, either. But first, let’s call the bullies to account. They did wrong. All of them. And the teachers and admins too. And the librarian too. This was a human tragedy waiting to happen. Let’s try to work together to make sure this kind of tragedy never happens again.”

I taught at the high school level for a number of years until recently, and all I can say is that teachers and administrators are not telling the truth if they are claiming ignorance of the situation. As an adult in a high school setting I was privy to many conversations and interactions between students. There is an adult presence in most of the areas that students congregate, the bathroom being the sole exception. It seems this young girl suffered numerous public humiliations. No doubt there were adult witnesses to many of these. Adults who did not intervene or do the responsible thing. Now they are trying to protect themselves from a lawsuit.
Simply put, the adults in this situation simply did not do their jobs and should be fired.
Incidents like this make me strongly consider homeschooling.

Why is everyone here ignoring the elephant in the room? Phoebe brought this all on herself, by using her body to gain acceptance. Come on, everyone, a freshman, new the USA, immediately hooks up with the two most popular football players in the senior class? She did use her body for this, and it backfired. This is not to blame her, and the suicide was a tragedy and the bullies must be punished, but hey, reality check. She was no angel here. She initiated both contacts with the guys! She should have known better. Maybe she was a masochist, looking for trouble. These things happen.

All I can say, DANnY, is that if you’re a Christian, you’re a piss poor example of one.
I offer nothing but pity for the cultural “norm” of showing contempt for the victim. “Loser!!” we cry, as if that makes it okay to kick the victime while she’s down.
Oh, and DANnY: I am not a Christian, but I am surrounded by them. I think I know a real one when I see one.

good point

There have been comments that bully and administration alike have “good christian” principles, but when those involved refuse to extent the basic human dignity of inquiring as to the well-being of the family, then one has to wonder about the foundation, or lack thereof, in the lives of those involved in the death of Phoebe Prince.
There are people in South Hadley who want to “move on.” And so goes the mantra there. But before anyone moves on, there must be forgiveness for the sin committed against an innocent. Before foregiveness, there must be the penance. And before penance, there must be the confession of the sin.
It is far too soon for anyone in South Hadley to move on.

Couldn’t agree more. The suicide death of Phoebe Prince is a national tragedy. No child should be born in America, or come to America, and be subjected by abuse by her peers, neglect by teachers and school administrators, and apparent distain by perpetrators’ AWOL parents.
But that’s perhaps what happens in a society so sexually conflicted that sex with a prostitute can destroy a political career but elevate that same prostitute to the front cover of Playboy, a society that seeks to have teens sign abstinence-until-marriage contracts while rap “artists” wail about their ho’s in the background, a society that demeans and degrades women who sleep with a married celebrity while cheering on the same celebrity as he makes a “comeback” in his sport.
Better we should be like the Europeans, where sex is sex, and not a big deal, where pols have affairs without rebuke, where young males and females sit naked in saunas with predictable unassailable results and where prostitution is legal and controlled for safety’s sake.
Had Phoebe Prince only stayed away from America, the conflicted, she would be alive today. Perhaps she should have waited to come until America grows up.

There is lots happening here now that should tell us something. My polite, yet unPC and contrarian POV on all this is being routinely censored and deleted when I post comments on top media reporters’ blogs: Dan Kennedy in Boston, a media critic at Northeastern University, a champion of free speech, no less, has banned me from posting on his blog, he even deleted my first comment that he at first let get on and later decided to take off after other PC people complained to him, also Ross Douhat the New York Times has censored and banned my comments on his blog on this, also Bill Weye in Masasachuetts has censored and banned me froms his blog. and now Corky at a New York paper also tells me:
“So for that she should be hounded to death? Sorry Dan. You’re wrong. C.S.”
Most people are in denial out there.
I understand their censoring me and banning me. It only proves my hunch correct. when people are in denial, it means the facts are otherwise, that is why they are in denial. I told CorkY;
“no, Corky, she should NOT be hounded to death, i agree with you…..but watch, my hunch will be proved right in the coming weeks and months as the trial unfolds…of course, the bullies should be punished to the max, i agree, i am on Phoebe’s side, but I am right, Corky, watch. remember the herman Rosenblat Holocaust hoax memoir that Oprah supported that I got to be cancelled before publcaiton and everyone in NYC told me to shut up and i was wrong,.and….in the end, I was right? I singehandedly took that book down, based on my hunch, yet not one NYC reporter would answer me emails before i did it…..the same thing is happening here….WATCH…..and of course, if i am wrong, i often am, 50 50 is my batting average, i will apologize to you and eat my hat…..but i believe i am on the something, even though it is not PC….WATCH
danny
PS; And I am not the only one with this POV, there is a sizable minorioty of observers who have the same POV I have.

Danny, you won’t see me calling to censor you. Indeed, things that should be handled — whether you are right or wrong — must see the light of day first.
But here’s the thing: Your assertions so far posted here — and they are too brief to be allowed to sit unchallenged — are laced with assumption, prejudice, and cultural bias.
For example: If you are going to charge Miss Prince with “using her body”, you better examine the other side of the coin as well. The girls who harrassed her, what was their motivation? Were they devout Christians trying to protect the souls of the boys Miss Prince “seduced”? Or were they reacting like jealous females whose chosen mates chose to have sex with someone other than with them? Is there some third description that warrants examination?
In the end, and until you decide to present evidence for your assertions in a rational mode that avoids attempts to lead the reader to agree with your conclusions — something that any journalist is taught — I maintain my contempt for both your assertions and the manner in which you’ve expressed them… and I am supremely unimpressed by your attempts to paint yourself as a martyr to popular opinion. Suck it up and deal, much as any victim of bullying who is ignored by authorities must do, eh?

Franklin Evans, thanks for your good comment. You will see that I am a civil and friendly bloke, too. I am not Christian, by the way. I am Jewish. I do not believe in the hocus pocus of some false messiah as Jesus’s followers said he was, I am sure he was no messiah. I am alsop sure there is no G-D, but notice i use a hyphen there just in case there is! SMILE. I am an agnostic atheistic freethinker and I feel everyone should be at their peril of not understanding reality. But for those who still follow Dark Ages religion, I respect you all. I was brainwashed as a kid, too. We all grow out of it sooner or later, though, well, some of us. And those who don’t grow out of it, that’s okay too. I love everyone in the world, and I love life.
That said, Franklin, one very important point, re “Danny, you won’t see me calling to censor you. Indeed, things that should be handled — whether you are right or wrong — must see the light of day first.
But here’s the thing: Your assertions so far posted here — and they are too brief to be allowed to sit unchallenged — are laced with assumption, prejudice, and cultural bias.
For example: If you are going to charge Miss Prince with “using her body”…”
First of all, I plead guilty to the assumptions charge. But not to the prejudice charge, and not to the cultural bias charge, although I accept your charges. Good points to think about. But as for you saying I charge Ms Prince with using her body…..Franklin, I never charged her with this. I am just saying, maybe. Mere speculation on my part. To foment a discussion that pushse the envelope. To think outside the box. Which brings me to this:
I agree with that we need to be careful with how we approach this
case, pro and con. MY wild
speculations are merely specualations and I use them to try
to smoke out the media, this is my M.O., works for me, but not for
everyone, …i don’t have a pHD or a career or a job to protect
so i can afford to go out on a limb and make wild speculations in my
reporters attempt to smoke out some of the people who
refuse to talk to me or post my comments, but yes, we don’t KNOW what
happebned, especially me, i know nothing…THAT SAID,
this M.O. works for me…..but i take full responsiblity for my rather
unorthodox ways……not for everyone….
YES YES YES: RE: “Phoebe Prince could have been a sweet free-loving kid
unconscionably bullied to distraction by a bunch of rat bastard alphas, she
could have been complicit in a complex web of interpersonal conflicts, she
could have been a victim of severe abuses long before she set foot in South
Hadley High and was already well on her way to tragedy. We don’t know.”
part of my MO is to try to *upset* the ”media narrative….”
re ”the media narrative is set in
stone,”…by making wild speculations that might or might not cause
some people to DISH things to me by email. But best to follow the
normal channels i agree…..when my “work” is
done, i will report back……. i often have “success” this way
but finding out the truth of the PP case is not going to be fun or
pleasant and not really a success….it’s a sad story.
And i hope i am wrong. i wanna be wrong. I am on PP’s side. SIGH
BECAUSE a friend told me this today: “Dan and everyone else — We have
to be very careful about speculations in the South Hadley case. We
don’t know what happened. We have only the prosecutor indictments
(mere allegations), a great deal of one-sided media gossip
(traditionally worthless), and some conflicting school and family
statements (very hard to assess). Phoebe Prince could have been a
sweet free-loving kid unconscionably bullied to distraction by a bunch
of rat bastard alphas, she could have been complicit in a complex web
of interpersonal conflicts, she could have been a victim of severe
abuses long before she set foot in South Hadley High and was already
well on her way to tragedy. We don’t know. Since the prosecutor made a
criminal case out of it, we may well find out a great deal more. But
one thing one might predict: the media narrative is set in stone, just
like it was in the now-debunked Gloucester Mass. “teen pregnancy pact”
fiasco. remember that? We certainly have seen commenters and posters
incited by inflammatory media reports declaring the Phoebe case closed
and demanding all manner of retributions, some violent, against the
pre-convicted “bullies,” and these are not being censored.”

Danny, thanks for providing clarification (and expansions) on your original statements. I also appreciate your tolerance of my passion about this topic. It’s refreshing to have a civil continuation of a discussion after the dust has settled.
I have just one request: One can foment discussion without being unduly provocative. If you feel the need to attract emotional notice in order to promote ideas (even speculations as in this case) then you will also get people like me criticizing your word and phrasing choices. Serve the ideas with rational statements, and while you may have less hue and cry, you might have quite a few more nodding heads. One thing is true about this blog at least, it generates quite a lot more notice than the number of posts would imply.

If danny bloom is “on the side of PP” then I am the king of England.
danny fails to heed a basic Commandment: thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
get your sorry unchristian being into a confessional, danny, and quit dumping on the defenseless body of that dead girl.

@Franklin — thanks for notes. and i will heed your words, well said.
@sauerkraut — you know i am Jewish, right. So cut the antisemitism, sir. My sorry unchristian being? Your sickness is what has brought america down sir. Maybe you didn’t read my earlier post. do so again, if you have time. and cut the antisem sir, no need for it here. you got your god, i am got mine. never the twain shall meet. you aint better than me and i aint better than you. just different addresses. get it? stop the antisem. it is a sickness of america and europe.
now back to poor Phoebe:
Phoebe Prince’s suicide is a complex, complicated, mysterious act and needs to be seen in light of all that we know about her, may she rest in eternal peace!
And a little birdie tells me:
“In reading the indictments posted on ”Anderson Cooper 360” and the news stories, we can find allegations of vicious behaviors by the indicted students as well as troubling aspects of Phoebe Prince’s reported behavior.
For example, “Phoebe’s little sister found her in a stairwell, hanging from the scarf she’d given her for Christmas” (USA Today, 4/4).
This kind of suicide, where the victim knows she is likely to be found in the worst possible circumstances, quite possibly by her 12-year-old sister, often indicates an intent to hurt the family. She also left no note, which is very unusual for girls’ suicides in particular. Indications are this was an extremely disturbed girl, but it’s hard to know exactly what the motivating factor was.
Looking at information is fine, but we repeat: we don’t know the major facts yet. There’s a danger to making rash assumptions.
Also, let’s also recognize that teenagers are very UNLIKELY to commit suicide, especially girls.
Of 2.1 million 15 year-old girls in the U.S., just 50 commit suicide in a given year, and another 30 die from causes that could even remotely be considered self-destructive in intent.
Phoebe Prince’s suicide, whatever its motivation (and we suspect they were many and long-building in origin), represents an extremely RARE one for a teen girl…
Just in Massachusetts, and pay attentionh kevin Cullen at the Boston Globe and Peter Sshworm there, too, and Holly Epstein at the NYTimes, not to mention Dan Kennedy at Northeastern school of censorship, and pal bill Weye, vital statistics show that from 1999-2006, a total of 8 girls age 15 committed suicide–fewer than 1 per year, in a population of 42,000. Phoebe Prince is an extremely rare case.
Also, she hanged herself–a very sure and gruesome way to die, which is very rare among girls (most female suicide attempters use drug overdoses, which leaves lots of room for rescue and no disfiguration). And she hanged herself in a common area of her house, using a gift her little sister gave her.
Finally, she left no note. Most young females in particular leave notes, both to make sure those they blame know they’re to blame, and those they love and want to reassure know they are NOT to blame. I don’t claim to know whether the physical facts we so far know about generally indicating a severely disturbed and detached girl (more troubled than even most suicides) are true in this particular case.
More information is to come. But from what we know about so far, the defense and school are going to have ample avenues to suggest it was not bullying that primarily killed Phoebe Prince.”
AGREE OR DISAGREE?

My initial disagreement is with the attempt to generalize a specific event. Suicide is personal. Mental health professionals (including the ones who trained me as a suicide counselor) emphasize exactly one point of confidence: Every person is going to have something unique in his or her psychological processes around depression and suicide.
Let me emphasize that, because in all the media rhetoric and speculation, it will be the first thing lost: Miss Prince killed herself because that is what she in her emotional state considered the only way out of an impossible situation.
(I must also add at this point that standard police investigation priorities finds the lack of a suicide note probable cause to consider the possibility that it was a homicide, not a suicide.)
Beware of second-guessing. Be most emphatically cautious about hindsight psychoanalysis, because therein lies your first and worst mistake: Projecting your rational analysis onto the irrational state of mind of the suicide.
Danny, please look elsewhere instead of at statistics. As I like to tell people who insist on driving aggressively when they cite the low percentages of traffic injury and fatality: There may only be a 10% chance of being killed on the highway, but once it happens you are 100% dead.

I am in high school and it is tough and you have to adjust but you dont have to be bullied to death by your peers. I think they should take serious actions on this case because she may have been trying to make something of herself after high school and college. She may have been one day trying to help someone that has been down the same path that shes been down in her high school years. This should become a law for kids who bully others they should have to be tried as an adult and have a harsh punishment about this. They should at least have to go to jail for at least 10-30 years because of death by suicide because of them bulying. People just dont understand how serious it is for someone to be bullied. They have always said that people who bully have problems themselves. Then why did the jocks bully pheobe? ohhhh i forgot jocks dont have “problems” its just because they think they are such high class but really in the real world they are the same as everyone else if you really look at it. I hate when this happens. We are doing a project in English II about bullying because it is becoming such a big problem these days. I hope the 6 teens who caused this, get big punishment from the family of pheobe prince.. and the federal courts..take all this bullying into consideration next time you are mean to someone..
– Brittany Blankenship–

I am just really sad about the entire thing. Girls are mean in general and there is a lot of pressure in high school to fit in, for both boys and girls. I remember high school as a horrible time in my life. Although it was 15 years ago, I still will see something and have a flash or horrible memories of the certain girls in my class and how they treated me. I just hope that people learn from this and realize that high school a small part of your life although you can be effectived by it for the rest of your life through your confidence and how you feel about yourself in general. I personally got past it for the most part, but I try to remember how I felt, because I never want to treat someone the way I was, you can only try to make yourself a better person from your experiences. I do feel that these kids need to be punished, I’m not sure what the right punishment is, but I hope that whatever happens from this experience they grow into better people. No matter a person’s flaws no one deserves to be treated badly, it may be unrealistic but I personally hope that everyone kids and adults have learned something from this.

A common perception among some psychologists is that bullies have deep insecurities. I suppose some do – the ones who’ve been abused or have “reactive attachment disorder”.
But a person’s temperament has a lot to do with bullying as well. A naturally fearless, cold hearted, impulsive type will be far more likely to bully than somebody who’s more inclined to be timid, touchy-feely, and highly conscientious. The former will feel much more self assured and self entitled than the latter. They can take from others with less fear of repercussion, guilt or violating moral codes. The former will also prefer to use manipulation to get what they want out of people. Successful bullies don’t care because they don’t have an innate need to.
When psychologists proclaim that all bullying stems from insecurity, I think they’re partly projecting their own thought patterns and insecurities onto the bully, and partly wishfully thinking that all bullies can be “cured” somehow.

@Danny Bloom. You posed the question, agree or disagree? at the end of your post. I tend to disagree with some of your statements. There was another kid (Carl Walker) age 11 who hung himself in Western Massachusetts not long before Ms. Prince. He was mercilessly teased by fellow classmates as being gay. He was a star football player and was popular at school, but was driven to suicide.
Hanging may not be common among girls, but how many receive requests that they hang themself on Facebook or via texts? Some news agencies have reported someone posted on her Facebook page a request that the recent immigrant hang herself the day of her death, and a report she was texted the same message.
You mention the lack of a suicide note as being troubling. The victim was reported to have left some artwork which detailed the nightmare she had been living. Not quite a suicide note, but artists sometime communicate visually instead of through the written medium.
I guess I can understand your disbelief that young students could behave so monstrously towards a new student. Perhaps you believe that the girl herself was so damaged that the defendants were heroes for tormenting her. You are entitled to your opinion. However, if the defendants actions were criminal then the courts have no recourse but to try them. Just like the fact one of the defendants recently received a DUI. He can blame the victim for causing his drinking, but that will not decrease his sentence. While a big fan of Don Quixote tipping at windmills, and do some of that myself, I think you should take a closer look at this particular windmill.

@franklin re “Let me emphasize that, because in all the media rhetoric and speculation, it will be the first thing lost: Miss Prince killed herself because that is what she in her emotional state considered the only way out of an impossible situation.” — Well said!
@Brian J re “I tend to disagree with some of your statements.” — That’s okay. I am here merely to be part of a group discussion, I have no agenda one way or the other, other than to try to ascertain the truth in this sad tragic story.
Brian reports: “Hanging may not be common among girls, but how many receive requests that they hang themself on Facebook or via texts? Some news agencies have reported someone posted on her Facebook page a request that the recent immigrant hang herself the day of her death, and a report she was texted the same message. ” — I didn’t know this, thanks for the updates. Important clues, yes!
And: “You mention the lack of a suicide note as being troubling. The victim was reported to have left some artwork which detailed the nightmare she had been living. Not quite a suicide note, but artists sometime communicate visually instead of through the written medium.” — Also good input, thanks, i also did not know this.
RE: “I guess I can understand your disbelief that young students could behave so monstrously towards a new student.” — No no, Brian, I believe they bullied her and that they are monsters. I am on Phoene’s side here. Trust me on this.
And re “Perhaps you believe that the girl herself was so damaged that the defendants were heroes for tormenting her.” — No no, come on, sir, I do not see the bullies as heroes, theya are scum. I am on PP’s side here. Again. I must repeat.
“While a big fan of Don Quixote tipping at windmills, and do some of that myself, I think you should take a closer look at this particular windmill.” — Brian J, good point, and I will take a closer look and i appreciate your good feedback, really. As a fellow windmill tilter to another, who also makes mistakes, I salute you sir. I am right half the time, wrong half the time. Actually, more like I am right 10 percent of the time. But that’s what titlting is all about. Let’s see on this one. But please know, I am on Phoebe’s side here, the side of angels. I am just an investigative reporter so i must ask some tough and unhappy questions. I don’t like my job. But….