{"id":40191,"date":"2023-12-17T14:25:09","date_gmt":"2023-12-17T19:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40191"},"modified":"2023-12-17T14:26:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T19:26:26","slug":"rebecca-sedwick-2013-suicide-what-the-sheriff-files-show-and-its-not-bullying-did-sheriff-grady-judd-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/17\/rebecca-sedwick-2013-suicide-what-the-sheriff-files-show-and-its-not-bullying-did-sheriff-grady-judd-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Sedwick 2013 suicide: what the sheriff files show \u2013 and it’s not bullying – did Sheriff Grady Judd lie!!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rebecca Ann Sedwick (October 19, 2000 \u2013 September 9, 2013)<\/strong> was a 12-year-old American student at Crystal Lake Middle School in Lakeland, Florida who died by suicide when she jumped off a concrete silo tower, just 1 month and 10 days before her thirteenth birthday. Investigation into her death led to a conclusion of in-person and cyberbullying contributing to the decision to take her own life. Sedwick’s family later filed a lawsuit in relation to her death.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The suicide of Rebecca Sedwick drew international media attention in 2013 and reignited a conversation about the dangers of bullying. But now, reviews of the police files paint a far more complex picture of what the 12-year-old was dealing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Florida Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called a press conference to announce the arrest of two juvenile girls on aggravated stalking charges, he said that the girls essentially drove 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick to commit suicide through relentless online bullying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRebecca was absolutely terrorized on social media,\u201d Sheriff Judd said at one press conference, asserting that up to 15 students may have been involved.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case, seemingly an egregious example of another instance in which teenage bullying was to blame for a suicide, drew international media attention and reignited a conversation about the dangers of bullying, and cyberbullying in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But just a month after the charges were filed, they were dropped because of insufficient evidence.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, reviews of the police files for the case paint a far more complex picture of what Rebecca was dealing with \u2013 including family problems with her mother, stepfather, and father; a history of self-cutting, and a breakup with an Internet boyfriend just before her suicide. The reviews of the police files also reveal little evidence of the online bullying that Judd said was so pervasive.<\/p>\n\n\n

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So did Judd lie?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The files have caused some bullying experts to criticize the way in which the case was handled and to paint it as a cautionary tale of too quickly drawing assumptions along the accepted storyline that the public and news media now look for \u2013 blaming suicide on bullying.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more I look at these files, the more livid I am at this sheriff,\u201d says Nancy Willard, director of Embrace Civility in the Digital Age, which works to combat cyberbullying, and author of \u201cPositive Relations @ School (& Elsewhere).\u201d Ms. Willard has extensively reviewed all the police files for the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn his first press conference … Sheriff Judd made the assertion that Rebecca had been tormented through social media by up to 15 girls for over a year,\u201d Willard says. \u201cJust recently, I received a message from his public information office that stated, \u2018We received 26,000 pages of chat log that were of no value to the criminal investigation.\u2019 My conclusion is that his brazen assertion had absolutely no basis in any evidence.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judd\u2019s office stands by its decision, and there is evidence that \u201cclearly supported the charges of Aggravated Stalking,\u201d says PCSO spokeswoman \u201cOne suspect we arrested is now receiving help through diversionary programs offered to her by the State Attorney\u2019s Office in exchange for her charges being dropped. The other suspect has been and is participating in voluntary counseling arranged by her family. These are positive outcomes and ones that we support.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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At the time of their arrests, Katelyn Roman was 12, and Guadalupe Shaw was 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A review of police files shows that Rebecca was involuntarily committed and evaluated for \u201csuicidal ideation\u201d nearly a year before her death, and that \u201cRebecca\u2019s stressors were the arguments between her mom and stepdad and Rebecca\u2019s biological father not being a constant part of her life.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reveals conflicts with other students at her school \u2013 from which she withdrew in February 2013 \u2013 both around a boyfriend and students calling her a \u201cliar.\u201d That label was apparently due to an abuse report that she filed against her mother, which was later judged to be false. Rebecca was also cutting herself \u2013 something she attributed to bullying in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police files contain numerous allegations by various students of \u201cbullying\u201d that occurred, but little in the way of actual chats or transcripts from social media that could be used as evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThere was a period of maybe a little more than a month of teen drama\u201d mostly around a boyfriend, Willard says, \u201cfollowed by zero reports of anyone witnessing any further bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArguments and disagreements over a boyfriend are teen drama; it\u2019s not bullying,\u201d she adds, noting that \u201cby the time police officers started doing all the questioning at school, all of the news media was out there saying Rebecca was being bullied, so that\u2019s the language the students were using.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the famous Facebook post \u2013 in which one of the girls allegedly posted nearly a month after Rebecca\u2019s death, \u201cYes, I bullied Rebecca and she killed herself but I don’t give a [expletive]\u201d \u2013 is probably \u201cthe profoundly anguished posting of a young girl who is being accused of causing another child to [commit] suicide,\u201d Willard says. (The girl\u2019s parents state she couldn\u2019t have posted the statement, since she was in bed, with no access to a computer, at the time it was posted.)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca was grappling with suicide for some time before her death. She had been conducting Internet searches that seemed to point to ways of harming herself. In her diary, she made a list of \u201cbad things I got called today\u201d and \u201cgood things I got called today\u201d: Under \u201cbad\u201d were words like \u201cstupid,\u201d \u201cslut,\u201d and \u201cugly\u201d; the good side included \u201csmart,\u201d \u201cpretty,\u201d and \u201cnice.\u201d At the bottom of the page she wrote: \u201csuicidal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with the Lakeland Ledger, Rebecca\u2019s mother, Tricia Norman, strongly took issue with the idea that family problems played a role in Rebecca\u2019s suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really don’t think there was any other factors involved” beyond bullying, Ms. Norman told The Ledger. “Her home life with me was fine. The only issue was me and her stepdad argued sometimes, but all kids have parents that argue. It wasn’t anything upsetting her or making her miserable or anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She did say that Rebecca had at least two instances of deliberately \u201cscratching\u201d herself to gain attention from her father, but reiterated her conviction that bullying was what made her take her life. “What Rebecca was upset over in her life was these girls not leaving her alone,” Norman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numerous references are made to possible bullying in police interviews with classmates, but there is scant evidence in the files of actual bullying and no transcripts of online interactions between Rebecca and the two girls charged with stalking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screen shots of \u201canonymous\u201d comments made to Rebecca on Ask.fm, a social networking tool, have been released, saying things like \u201cNobody cares about you\u201d and \u201cyou seriously deserve to die.\u201d But the tone of the \u201cconversations\u201d at least raises the possibility that they were an example of \u201csuicide ideation\u201d on Rebecca\u2019s part and that she posted them herself, says Willard, noting that there are other examples of that occurring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with the Associated Press, Judd said that he and his deputies tried to obtain records from overseas social media companies without success. He also said that some of the evidence and conversations they heard about seemed to have been deleted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Rebecca was a very fragile child,” Judd told the AP. “Rebecca’s wagon was already pretty heavily burdened with bricks. And we never said that bullying was the only reason Rebecca committed suicide. But what the bullies did is that they continued to stack bricks on an already-overloaded wagon, till finally it broke.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Willard and others say the case was a clear example of the dangers of pinning too much blame on bullying while ignoring other factors that may have played a role in suicide. They also criticize Judd for the very public way in which his office brought charges against the two girls, including naming them and identifying them with photos, despite the fact that they were juveniles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the charges were dropped, the lawyer for one of the girls said it was \u201creckless\u201d that charges had been brought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I didn\u2019t like, right from the beginning, about how Rebecca\u2019s case was handled is that it was prosecuted in the public,\u201d says Justin Patchin, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a criminal justice professor at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThe sheriff went public with everything so quickly,\u201d he says. \u201cEven if the allegations against two minors were confirmed, it still should have been handled privately in juvenile court.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, The PIO of the sheriff\u2019s office said, \u201cThe name, address, photo, and charges against a juvenile arrested for a felony in the state of Florida is public record. Our release of their information was done so in compliance with this law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Patchin and Willard both say that research shows a connection between bullying and suicide, but emphasize that establishing a direct cause can be very difficult. Most cases also involve other factors, including depression and mental health issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the 2011 National Crime Victimization Survey, about 9.2 percent of students \u2013 some 1.2 million students \u2013 report that someone was \u201churtful\u201d to them at school once or twice a week. Of that number, 540,000 said someone was hurtful \u201calmost every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany kids get bullied, and that vast majority don\u2019t commit suicide or think seriously about committing suicide,\u201d Patchin says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willard agrees, saying she\u2019s troubled by the rapidity with which the public seems to want to point fingers at other children for almost every suicide these days, even when the evidence isn\u2019t there \u2013 or to \u201cblame and arrest children\u201d while ignoring other factors that may have been even more of a driver toward suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n

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She\u2019s concerned, too, that publicizing a message that bullying leads to suicide may inadvertently be leading to more suicides, as students take home the message that \u201cif they\u2019re being bullied, suicide is an option they should consider.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Willard and Patchin say bullying \u2013 both online and in person \u2013 is a major problem that is not being addressed well by schools. But they also say that criminalization of bullying \u2013 or exaggerating its role \u2013 isn\u2019t the best way to go about stopping it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Ann Sedwick (October 19, 2000 \u2013 September 9, 2013) was a 12-year-old American student at Crystal Lake Middle School in Lakeland, Florida who died by suicide when she jumped off a concrete silo tower, just 1… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}