Police File On Student 'Bullied Into Committing Suicide' Strangely Lacking In Evidence Of Bullying

from the scapegoating-still-easier-than-addressing-the-ugliness-of-real-life dept

CNN recently published a follow up story dealing with the circumstances surrounding the suicide of Rebecca Sedwick, a 12-year-old who leapt to her death reportedly due to intense bullying -- and it appears the whole "bullying" part is almost entirely absent.

One of the more unexpected outcomes of Sedwick's suicide was the arrest of two students in connection with her death. (Though not wholly without precedent...) According to Sheriff Grady Judd, the two suspects posted messages both before and after Sedwick's death that indicated they were involved in her bullying. The older of the two suspects (one was 14 and the other 12) posted the following on Facebook after Sedwick took her own life.

Yes ik [I know] I bullied Rebecca nd she killed her self but IDGAF [I don't give a (expletive)].

Sheriff Judd took it upon himself to have these two arrested, setting a somewhat dangerous precedent in his county that people could be held criminally responsible for someone else's voluntary action. He seemed to approach this as a crusade against the cruelty of youth, one in which laws and common sense could be overturned in order to right wrongs.

Judd, as it turns out, has had plenty of crusades in his past. One of his more notable efforts involved sending deputies 1,900 miles away to arrest a suspected pedophile. Judd's moral compass, however, skews a bit further north than most, which makes his stance on issues like pornography and bullying somewhat suspect.

In 2007, commenting on a case in which he had arrested a man who was running a porn site out of his home in Polk, [Judd] said: "No normal person could even imagine what's depicted in those videos and in those photographs." A sexual behavior expert from the University of Central Florida said in a motion in the man's court file that it was run-of-the-mill erotica available anywhere on the Internet to anyone.

Judd also seldom performs his work without an audience. One colleague of his memorably stated that the most dangerous place to be is "between Judd and a camera." This calls into question Judd's judgement as well, which seems to be at least as populist-oriented as it is crime-oriented.

Not long after Judd's high-profile arrest of two students, the charges were dropped by the State District Attorney. Judd applied spin to his prized arrests being cut loose, claiming all he wanted to do was, "bring this conduct to the proper authorities." Considering Judd is one of the "proper authorities," one wonders what endgame he envisioned. It certainly couldn't have been his righteous crusade being found legally untenable by the state.

Another crusader, this time a lawyer, decided Sedwick's death called for a new law -- one that targeted parents for not policing their children's online behavior. According to his extrapolations, the parents should be held responsible for an unrelated person's suicide, something even further removed than Judd's assertion that the two students should be held criminally responsible for Sedwick's suicide. (Of course, Judd also thought the parents should be punished somehow, and even hauled in one of the parents for unrelated abuse/neglect charges.)

By the time this had all been sorted out, rumors were beginning to surface that Sedwick's home life wasn't quite the placid safehouse her grieving mother had portrayed it as.

More than a year before her death, Sedwick had been battling depression resulting from her deteriorating relationship with her father, according to intake reports from a counselor that are included in the police file. She also complained about fights between her mother and stepfather. The file, which has been reviewed by CNN, says she cut herself on a few occasions, had suicidal ideations and had been committed for psychiatric evaluation for two days.

In November 2012, she accused her mother of abusing her and then took back the accusation, saying she was pushed to lie by classmates who forced her off campus and told her they wouldn't let her return home unless she lied to an officer. Her mother denied abusing Sedwick but said she slapped the girl's face once during an argument about Sedwick being too young to date.

Sometime before her death, Sedwick's relationship with an online boyfriend came to an end, according to the documents. Family conflict, in addition to bullying from girls at school, weighed on her.

What wasn't found in the files, however, was much evidence that Sedwick was unrelentingly bullied.

"I don't think I was prepared for the abysmal lack ... of any evidence of bullying for the seven months prior to her suicide," said Nancy Willard, director of Embrace Civility in the Digital Age, a group that focuses on combating cyberbullying, and author of a handful of books including "Positive Relations @ School (& Elsewhere)."

Willard says this case is like many others: parents and authorities leaping to the wrong conclusions in the aftermath of a tragedy. The haste to pin a suicide on bullying buried the rest of Sedwick's background. This is somewhat understandable, given the circumstances. In the wake of a tragedy, no one wants to point the finger at the parents as possibly being partially responsible for their own child's death.

But if these teens were somehow responsible for Sedwick's suicide, then why wouldn't anyone go after the other factors, all of which were included in the police file? Why didn't someone haul in the ex-boyfriend? Surely he's as "culpable" as anyone.

No one would think to haul in anyone else (parents, ex-boyfriend) who contributed to Sedwick's unhappiness, but it was considered perfectly OK to haul in two teens and attempt to press criminal charges, even when faced with a dearth of evidence. But that's exactly how ridiculous Judd's efforts were.

Now that Judd has apparently seen this lack of evidence for the first time, he's backpedaling quickly.

"We never said that bullying was the only reason Rebecca committed suicide," Judd told The Associated Press. "But what the bullies did is that they continued to stack bricks on an already overloaded wagon till finally, it broke."

But these "bricks" could have been "stacked" in any order. Judd simply made the most popular move, one that brought in the most unsympathetic suspects. And then he rode his hobby horse hard, until it collapsed under the weight of his misguided convictions.

But there are still those who want to make someone pay. The lawyer for Sedwick's mother is planning to sue the school district as well as at least one of the two girls Judd arrested. He claims to have evidence that the teens bullied Sedwick and that the school not only knew, but did nothing to stop it.

There is evidence that indicates Sedwick was bullied in the months leading up to her death, but that evidence is scattershot at best. The lack of evidence doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, but it does suggest that, coupled with other information coming to light, it was hardly the only factor in Sedwick's decision to end her life.

The point here isn't to excuse the bullies for their actions. The point is that far too often the instantaneous reaction to tragedies is misguided and myopic, focusing on the least sympathetic protagonists and ignoring anything else that doesn't fit the narrative that's easiest to accept. The larger problem is that law enforcement and legislators are especially prone to act on this limited (or willfully ignored) information, and that results in all sorts of questionable actions and terrible laws -- things that negatively affect the general public.

Filed Under: blame, bullying, grady judd, rebecca sedwick, suicide

Charges Dropped On Both Students Charged In Connection With Classmate's Suicide

from the this-is-what-happens-when-actions-are-dictated-by-emotions dept

The two students arrested and charged with "felony aggravated stalking" by Polk County (FL) sheriff Grady Judd for allegedly participating in the bullying of a classmate who committed suicide have now had all charges brought against them dropped.

All charges against one of the girls accused of cyberbullying Rebecca Sedwick, the Lakeland girl who committed suicide, will be dropped, according to attorney Jose Baez.

Baez represents the 12-year-old girl.

"They dropped these charges because they simply didn't have the evidence, and they felt it was the right thing to do," said Baez.

The lawyer for a 14-year-old girl charged in the case says it is her understanding that charges against her client will also be dropped.

The state Attorney General hasn't given an official comment on the status of these cases as they're still pending, but Grady Judd seemed to confirm this was the case in a statement he made to the media.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd held a news conference to discuss the latest developments and said the outcome of the case was a success.

"Our goal was to create an intervention," he said. "Our goal was to bring this conduct to the proper authorities..."

Both girls are now receiving services and counseling. The 12-year-old's lawyer bashed the Sheriff for his actions, saying Judd "wanted to be a TV star" and was using his position as a "pulpit."

Baez's statements aren't exaggerations. Judd has leveraged his position as Polk County Sheriff into a countrywide child porn sting operation.

As sheriff, backed by a like-minded State Attorney's Office, Judd has made the signature of his administration child porn stings, Craigslist prostitution stings and so-called cyberstings modeled after NBC's To Catch a Predator. His undercover detectives pose online as teen girls to let men talk dirty to them. He arrested a swim coach from North Carolina. He arrested a man from Orlando who earlier had been called a hero for rescuing people from a plane crash. He arrested in Maryland a 57-year-old deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

Almost all these men live somewhere else. Judd brings them to Polk County.

Apparently, no matter where you live and what local laws you haven't violated, if moved to do so, Sheriff Judd will send his officers after you and haul you back to Florida to be judged by his rules.

A man in Colorado a couple of months ago published a book called The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure, and he didn't get arrested for it, and this made Grady Judd mad.

So the sheriff of Polk County, whose job is to protect and serve the roughly 500,000 people who live in the mostly agricultural area between Tampa and Orlando, had one of his undercover detectives contact Phillip Greaves of Pueblo, Colo., and ask to buy his book. Greaves sent a signed copy back to Polk, where Judd got a search warrant, and then sent two of his men 1,856 miles to arrest him the week before Christmas.

While some may argue that all's fair in the war on child porn, there are indications that Judd's idea of what is or isn't criminally obscene may be very skewed.

In 2007, commenting on a case in which he had arrested a man who was running a porn site out of his home in Polk, he said: "No normal person could even imagine what's depicted in those videos and in those photographs." A sexual behavior expert from the University of Central Florida said in a motion in the man's court file that it was run-of-the-mill erotica available anywhere on the Internet to anyone.

Judd's subjective morality may be what pushed him to pursue felony charges against two students, especially when he himself made statements that suggested their actions may have only played a small part (if any) in Rebecca Sedwick's decision to kill herself.

According to Judd, bullying "only contributed" to the death of Rebecca Sedwick, who died last month after jumping from a tower at an abandoned cement plant near her home…

Judd told CBS News' Crimesider that he charged the girls with stalking because what they did to Sedwick went beyond bullying into harassment and intimidation, but he also said that Sedwick had problems at home that may have contributed to her state of mind on the day of her death. According to Judd, Sedwick slept not on a bed at home, but in a recliner. Her sister, said Judd, slept on the couch, and the girls' clothes were kept in "grocery sacks" in the living room.

Sedwick's mother, Tricia Norman, has been in trouble with the law since at least 1995, when she was charged with multiple counts of writing bad checks, according to Polk County records. In 2005, she was again charged with writing bad checks, as well as fraud and probation violation. The records reveal that Norman apparently has several aliases, including Tricia Craig, Tricia Howard and Tricia Jones.

While this look into Sedwick's home life may have contributed to the charges being dropped, it apparently didn't factor into Judd's decision to charge the two youths. If nothing else, his surprising move to arrest the two students garnered him the attention he seems to thrive on.

Judd says he has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from his community - and people as far away as Hawaii and Alaska - for his decision to charge the girls for their alleged bullying.

Then there's this quote from a local police chief and former co-worker of Judd's.

"I kid him: 'The most dangerous place in Polk County is to get between you and a TV camera.' He just laughs. But he's worked the media very well. It's going to keep him elected. "

While many people would like to see bullies punished for their actions, letting a publicity-hungry Sheriff who has a track record of moralizing on a national scale from his Florida office use an emotionally-charged issue as a personal chew toy is a terrible idea.

Filed Under: bullying, cyberbullying, grady judd, grandstanding, rebecca sedwick

Lawyer Wants New Law To Hold Parents Criminally Liable For Their Kids' 'Cyberbullying'

from the another-tragedy-and-another-misguided-crusade dept

Lakeland, Florida has yet to erect any cyberbullying laws in the wake of a 12-years-old student's suicide, setting it apart from many other locales which have reacted badly to tragedies by rushing out overly broad and under-thought legislation. Of course, this plus is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd has pretty much turned his office into a vigilante squad after declaring his "zero tolerance" (and made up just right now) policy against cyberbullying.

Judd arrested 14-year-old Guadalupe Shaw for a Facebook post in which she acknowledged bullying Rebecca Sedwick and noted she "didn't give a fuck" that the 12-year-old had killed herself. Judd charged Shaw with aggravated stalking. Not content with that, Judd tasked his investigators with finding something he could charge Shaw's parents with because he was unimpressed with Shaw's unrepentant attitude and her parents' failure to "smash" Shaw's computer into "thousands of pieces" after they found out about her activities.

Lucky for Judd, investigators found something, although that "something" isn't entirely related to Shaw's alleged bullying of Sedwick.

An outspoken Florida sheriff who arrested a 14-year-old girl for cyber-bullying after a younger schoolmate killed herself has filed child abuse charges against her mother, over an unrelated incident.

Polk County sheriff Grady Judd said Vivien Lee Vosburg, 30, punched and shouted obscenities at several children in her care in a violent incident in June that was captured on video [which can be viewed here] and later posted to Facebook by one of the children.

Judd has held Shaw's mother, Vivian Lee Vosburg, on child abuse charges. Meanwhile, Shaw has been released pending a court appearance. Not exactly what Judd was looking for when he first stated his desire to charge Shaw's parents for contributing (I guess) to the bullying of Rebecca Sedwick, but it seems to fit the narrative he's portraying.

"This clearly indicates to us that this appears to be a normal way of life," said Judd, who has declared a "zero tolerance" approach to cyber-bullying in his county. "They're laughing and cussing and throwing the F-bomb around, then they're posting that conduct for all to see. It is clear not only has Vosburg demonstrated she cannot control the behaviour of children she has access to without using violence, but she is obviously not monitoring the social media sites of children she has access to either.

"I'm astounded by this conduct, I'm astounded that it was posted and then I'm even more astounded that it stayed there."

Of Guadalupe Shaw, Judd said: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

Judd's getting what he wants: a chance to prosecute parents for a child's behavior, all of which is punishment for another child's suicide. But so far, he and his "zero tolerance" have been limited to existing laws. Unfortunately, someone wants to change that, and that someone is none other than George Zimmerman's defense attorney, Mark O'Mara.

Florida attorney Mark O'Mara is stepping onto center stage in the debate over how much parents should be held responsible for children’s cyberbullying. He plans to draft legislation to impose criminal liability on parents who show "willful blindness or gross negligence" to the kind of online torment allegedly inflicted on Rebecca Sedwick, for which two girls were recently arrested.

"If a child kills someone while operating a parent’s car, the parents can be held responsible. If a child kills someone while using a parent's gun, the parent can be held responsible. If a child breaks the law using a computer or cellphone provided by the parent, how is that different?" wrote Mr. O'Mara, who served as defense attorney for George Zimmerman in this year's Trayvon Martin murder trial, in his "O'Mara Law Blog" on Thursday.

O'Mara's terrible idea looks to do more damage than Sheriff Judd's new found interest in zero tolerance policing of cyberbullies. O'Mara's proposal aims to do what Nova Scotia's atrociously bad cyberbullying law does: hold parents responsible for their children's actions. While O'Mara may have point about legal adults having been historically held responsible for certain illegal acts utilizing property owned by parents, this is breaking new ground.

For one thing, while Nova Scotia's law has the (to date untested) potential to hold parents civilly liable for their children's online bullying actions, O'Mara's draft legislation would hold parents criminally liable, a much more negative potential outcome. The attorney believes the law is needed because (in his opinion) parents have become too lax in monitoring and controlling their children's online activities.

O'Mara acknowledged in his blog that "there are substantial obstacles in the way of passing such legislation," but he said, "If parents won't adopt that responsibility, we need to hold their feet to the fire and insist they share liability, especially when their children's actions have life or death consequences."

If O'Mara's legislation is combined with the worst aspects of Nova Scotia's law (purely subjective "standard" for what can be termed "bullying," the entire process is ex parte -- no input from the accused during any step of the process), Floridians are going to have a new nightmare on their hands. Laws like this chill speech by holding normally protected expression to broadly restrictive standards. But all of this is what's come to be expected when people with the power to push legislation and deploy investigators decide to turn a tragedy into a crusade.

Filed Under: cyberbullying, grady judd, guadalupe shaw, liability, mark o'mara, parents, rebecca sedwick, vivan lee vosburg, zero tolerance

Two Florida Students Charged In Connection With A Bullied 12-Year-Old's Suicide

from the and-the-problem-with-existing-laws-is-what? dept

Two alleged cyberbullies have been arrested in Florida, but not because as a result of hastily erected cyberbullying laws. Not that Lakeland could have been blamed for rushing some legislation into existence.

Twelve-year-old Rebecca Sedwick jumped off a tower at an abandoned cement plant after enduring months of bullying by 15 other teens and tweens. Another student, 14-year-old Guadalupe Shaw, posted this message on Facebook shortly after Sedwick's suicide.

Yes ik [I know] I bullied Rebecca nd she killed her self but IDGAF [I don't give a (expletive)].

On the strength of that post, Shaw was arrested and is facing charges for "felony aggravated stalking." Another unnamed 12-year-old was picked up and is facing the same charge.

Officials have presumably secured previous posts from the two arrestees aimed at Sedwick that justify the felony charges. This message alone would not qualify as a felony or misdemeanor.

(2) A person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows, harasses, or cyberstalks another person commits the offense of stalking, a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

(3) A person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows, harasses, or cyberstalks another person and makes a credible threat to that person commits the offense of aggravated stalking, a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

The difference between the two is the existence of a "credible threat." Messages sent to Sedwick from other students included phrases like, "You should die" and "Why don't you go kill yourself," including some sent by Shaw herself.

Witnesses told investigators that Shaw harassed Sedwick by calling her ugly, told her to "drink bleach and die," and suggested that she should kill herself.

Prosecutors hoping to make these charges stick may have trouble turning suggestions into threats, but as stated earlier, there may be more posts that haven't been made public that are actual threats. Even so, the felony charge is Class 3, one step up from a misdemeanor.

Grady Judd, the sheriff whose office performed the arrest, said Shaw brought this on herself.

"She forced this arrest," Judd said of the 14-year-old's alleged decision to post the message. He said investigators don't believe her Facebook account was compromised.

Judd sent detectives to arrest her and a 12-year-old friend at their homes.

They were booked Monday, and the 12-year-old was released to her parents, Judd said.

The 14-year-old made her first court appearance Tuesday and was being kept at a juvenile detention facility.

The comment about Shaw's account being "compromised" is a response to Shaw's parents' claim (and Shaw's herself) that their child's Facebook account was hacked.

But Shaw's parents told ABC News Tuesday that they regularly look at their daughter's account — and would never allow her to write anything so vile."I would check her Facebook every time she would get on it," said Shaw's mom, who wasn't identified.

"If we saw something that was not right, we would've addressed it and it would've ended right then," her dad added.

Shaw’s attorney also said the girl denies stalking Sedwick, a former classmate at Crystal Lake Middle School in Lakeland, and isn’t responsible for the online message.

So, there's that. The claim seems to be a bit unlikely, especially if investigators have collected posts made from the account over a lengthy time period. Even if Shaw didn't make the post that resulted in her arrest, it's going to be a stretch to assert that all negative posts directed at Sedwick from her account were a result of hacking. The latest post was the trigger for law enforcement, but the aggravated stalking charge relates to "repeated" actions. Even so, it's still an obstacle prosecutors will need to surmount.

That the teens are being charged under existing law indicates the "need" for separate cyberbullying laws is overstated. Existing statutes are capable of addressing the most harmful bullying behavior. Cyberbullying laws, at least to date, have tended to replace targeting clearly criminal behavior with targeting unpleasant behavior, not all of which is bullying and very much of which is protected expression.

That the outcome of this will be unsatisfactory for those seeking justice for Sedwick's suicide (most likely no time served for either arrestee) doesn't prove the existing laws don't go far enough. As tragic as Sedwick's suicide was, and as reprehensible as the behavior was that led to it, attempting to prosecute people for someone else's choice is a problematic area that no legislator should be willing to rush into. But so many have, applying heated emotions to a process that tends to result in many harmful unintended consequences if not dealt with rationally.

Filed Under: charges, cyberbullying, florida, guadalupe shaw, rebecca sedwick, stalking, suicide