It’s a common knowledge that many suffer bullying in silence. What makes it even more heartbreaking is the fact that sometimes it’s too late before anyone does something about it.
Such was the case for 13-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick from Staten Island, New York. He had been so severely bullied at school that he decided to end his own life.
Scheduled to start at Brooklyn’s Xaverian High School in the fall, Daniel left a tragic suicide note claiming that his old friends at his previous Holy Angels Catholic Academy had stopped talking to him.
He also said that they didn’t like him.
“I gave up,” the teen wrote in the suicide note that his parents supplied to The New York Daily News.
As if that isn’t tragic enough, he also said in the note: “The teachers either they didn’t do ANYTHING!”
The teen’s parents claim that their son’s bullies often threw balls at Daniel and called him derogatory names.
Speaking to the Daily News, Daniel’s mother Maureen said that his son always felt left out.
“He used to come up to me and ask me to get kids to play with him. The other kids would say they thought he was weird,” the mother said. “He felt like the whole school knew what was going on and was laughing behind his back. They humiliated him.”
Next page find out what Daniel’s parents said after the suicide
According to New York medical examiner spokesperson Julie Bolcer, Daniel died by hanging and the manner was suicide.
Following the death of his son, Daniel’s father posted a video on Facebook thanking everyone who had shown and given their support during the family’s difficult time.
In the video, he also criticizes the students who “tormented” his son as well as the Catholic school who simply told his son “you’ll be fine” when the teen asked school officials for help.
The teen’s father says:
“Thank you to all the people out there for your support and condolences, your thoughts and your shares,” he says in the video. “My son’s story is now out there for the world to see and for the world to know the pain that he went through.
“I miss my son very much.
“No parent should have to bury their child. No child should have to go through what my son went through.”
“To the parents of the boys that tormented my son, all I have to say is I hope you never have to feel what my family is going through right now.
“You get to hold your children every night and day for the rest of your lives and their natural lives. I don’t get that anymore. Your little monsters took that from me and my wife.”
READ: Concerned about bullies? Here are some things parents can do
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