ATLANTA, Georgia — Eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera woke up on April 16 acting strangely. He wasn't hungry and he didn't want to go to school.
But the outgoing fifth grader packed his bag and went to school at Dunaire Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia.
He came home much happier than when he left in the morning, smiling as he handed his mother, Masika Bermudez, a glowing report card full of A's and B's. She gave him a high-five and he went upstairs to his room as she prepared dinner.
A little later, when his younger sister called him to come down to eat, Jaheem didn't answer.
So mother and daughter climbed the stairs to Jaheem's room and opened the door.
Jaheem was hanging by his belt in the closet.
"I always used to see these things on TV, dead people on the news," says Bermudez. "I saw somebody die and to see this dead person is your son, hanging there, a young boy. … To hang yourself like that, you've got to really be tired of something."
Bermudez says bullies at school pushed Jaheem over the edge. He complained about being called gay, ugly and "the virgin" because he was from the Virgin Islands, she said.
"He used to say Mom they keep telling me this … this gay word, this gay, gay, gay. I'm tired of hearing it, they're telling me the same thing over and over," she told CNN, as she wiped away tears from her face.
But while she says her son complained about the bullying, she had no idea how bad it had gotten.
"He told me, but he just got to the point where he didn't want me to get involved anymore because nothing was done," she said.
Bermudez said she complained to the school about bullying seven or eight times, but it wasn't enough to save him.
"It [apparently] just got worse and worse and worse until Thursday," she said. "Just to walk up to that room and see your baby hanging there. My daughter saw this, my baby saw this, my kids are traumatized."
She said Jaheem was a shy boy just trying to get a good education and make friends.
Source: CNN
Parents this must stop! Children terrorizing another to the point where he or she wants to take their life. Talk to your kids get in involve today rather yesterday. Teach them to have self worth and to treat others with respect. This is the second child to commit suicide in less than three weeks because of being bullied literally to death.
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