Going back with the tragic case of Jessica Logan, the teen who committed suicide last July, 2008 by hanging herself and died due to asphyxiation. One could say, that her story is an eye-opener for all the teens who are used to this addicting fad of doing a ’sext’ : sex-text with their bf/gf.
Now, the parents of Jessica are suing the ex-boyfriend/several former highschool classmates and the school wherein Jessica has been mistreated beyond utter humiliation – a reason in which Logan’s parents believe why Jessica committed suicide.
According to the report:
The suit was filed in Ohio by Cynthia and Albert Logan who say that the students’ “degrading sexual insults” caused their 18-year-old daughter Jessica, their only child, severe emotional distress, which led her to kill herself in July 2008, a month after graduating from high school.
The suit names Ryan Salyers, Sara Jane Ramsey, Courtney Richardson and Emily Stachler, as well as a minor identified only as A.R. for severe infliction of emotional distress. Salyers is further accused of invading Jessica’s privacy. The Sycamore Community Schools Board of Education and Montgomery police officer Paul Payne will also be slapped for being negligent in not ending the “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment” of their daughter.
According to the complaint (pdf)
Toward the end of her senior year, Jessica sent a digital photo of herself to her boyfriend, Ryan Salyers, which showed her in the nude from her neck down. Shortly thereafter, the two broke up, and Salyers allegedly showed the photo to a handful of other students who in turn distributed it widely throughout Sycamore High School and Loveland High School.
It has been said that Jessica tried to seek help from the guidance counselor at her highschool, Sycamore High as well on a local police but all was in vain as the name-calling, teasing and harassment are still relentlessly being poked around her.
She was called filthy names, things thrown at her [...] Every single place she went they knew about that picture, they saw the picture. They knew about the picture! It’s abuse. She was abused.
After attending the funeral for a friend who had committed suicide in July 2008, Jessica Logan came home and killed herself by hanging herself in her room.
MSNBC Reports (video)
Reactions:
Clearly, this case branches out to many factors, keypoints wherein one can trigger the source on why the girl really did commit suicide. As much as people sympathize with the victim, you can’t deny the fact that she’s the one who send the ‘sext’ message to her BF. Not saying, it’s all her fault considering they are on a relationship on such a fragile adolescent age; However, there won’t be an effect without a cause, would there?
That statement above is the number one factor we see how this tragedy circumvented. A debatable truth that may lead other people to get emotionally-angry if not reviewed properly.
The next keypoint will be the BF, Obviously, if the boy didn’t ‘mass-send’ and flaunt the pictures to his friends then this shouldn’t be the case. We are not familiar with the laws that govern the state in Cincinnati, but there’s a rule on every Law book (My forte in writing is about computer so I call this the ‘default’ law) that states Privacy should be kept private, eventhough it has been given to a person voluntarily. If you will look at the facts, the ‘picture’ is a racy-photo. Obviously, sharing it without the permission of the other end (victim) will held the accused liable for an offense. And also, the occurrence of sending the photo happened ‘after’ the two broke-up, one could say that the boy has an ulterior motive behind the publication of the explicit photo.
It could be a form of revenge, pleasure, indulgent. Who knows? Hopefully this will be reviewed properly by the court.
The other keypoints will be the school admins and the local officers who were the victim’s only ‘shoulder’ to lean on and seek help during her ‘darkest’ days. The school administrator should be the first to respond and help the victim in any ways they can. In the statement release by the court, it seems as if there were only few people who really did help the victim on her troubles and worst the parents weren’t given any notices that their child is going on a slippery-slope not until the problem is close to unfixable.
One of the policies on any school is to give ‘due care’ to the students and to ensure the welfare of the pupils in which it includes the physical, mental and emotional side. Now it appears the administrator of the Sycamore High lacks on one or more of the fundamental policies stated.
And lastly, the parents of the victim also played a role on their child’s tragic-fall. One is negligence and proper discipline; ‘if only’ their daughter was nourished with the right knowledge about sharing intimate-privacy with other person (e.g: sexting) then this tragedy wouldn’t even be existing. I always knew that the parents are the ‘first line of defense’ when we are talking about the child’s personal development. A child’s morals, upbringing and belief will always be connected and molded by the parents. A strong foundation and support since the child was born can never hurt an individual when he/she grew up. It appears as though the victim lacks those parental-support.
Filing a lawsuit?
Obviously, the parents are on a staring anger over the factors they see why their daughter commit suicide. But more importantly and hopefully, they could realize that filing a lawsuit won’t bring their daughter back. Instead, doing the necessary charges to prevent ‘sexting’ and other related acts should be properly imposed on the school. Harassing and humiliation of a fellow student should be one of the strict policies any school must enforce and by not abiding it should be dealt with a serious sanction.
We’re not here to say that the school and the other individuals who were involve in the issue should not be given a proper punishment, because in fact they do.
But after that, what’s next? There will be another Jessica that will appear and have the same problem, commit the same mistakes and we will go in circles again. A recent study confirms that over one quarter of teens had engaged in “sexting” (“sharing sexually explicit photos, videos and chat by cell phone or online”), and that a third of young adults had engaged in the practice.
Just reducing a fraction of that could spell the difference of another tragic outcome.
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