9 Charged With Bullying Mass. Teen Who Killed Self

9 Charged With Bullying Mass. Teen Who Killed Self

STEPHANIE REITZ, Associated Press Writer

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (AP) ― Insults and threats followed 15-year-old Phoebe Prince almost from her first day at South Hadley High School, targeting the Irish immigrant in the halls, library and in vicious cell phone text messages.

Phoebe, ostracized for having a brief relationship with a popular boy, reached her breaking point and hanged herself after one particularly hellish day in January — a day that, according to officials, included being hounded with slurs and pelted with a beverage container as she walked home from school.

Now, nine teenagers face charges in what a prosecutor called "unrelenting" bullying, including two teen boys charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls charged with stalking, criminal harassment and violating Phoebe's civil rights.

School officials won't be charged, even though authorities say they knew about the bullying and that Phoebe's mother brought her concerns to at least two of them.

Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, who announced the charges Monday, said the events before Phoebe's death on Jan. 14 were "the culmination of a nearly three-month campaign of verbally assaultive behavior and threats of physical harm" widely known among the student body.

"The investigation revealed relentless activity directed toward Phoebe, designed to humiliate her and to make it impossible for her to remain at school," Scheibel said. "The bullying, for her, became intolerable."

Scheibel said the case is still under investigation and that one other person could be charged. It wasn't immediately known Monday whether the teens who have been charged have attorneys.

Scheibel said the harassment began in September, occurring primarily in school and in person, although some of it surfaced on Facebook and in other electronic forms. At least four students and two faculty members intervened to try to stop it or report it to administrators, she said.

Schiebel refused to discuss the circumstances of the rape charges.

No school officials are being charged because they had "a lack of understanding of harassment associated with teen dating relationships," and the school's code of conduct was interpreted and enforced in an "inconsistent" way, Scheibel said.

"Nevertheless, the actions — or inactions — of some adults at the school are troublesome," she said.

A message seeking comment was left Monday for South Hadley Schools Superintendent Gus A. Sayer.

Phoebe was born in Bedford, England and moved to County Clare, Ireland, when she was 2. She moved last summer to South Hadley, home to Mount Holyoke College, because the family had relatives there.

Her family has since moved away and could not immediately be located for comment. Scheibel spoke for them at a news conference to announce the charges.

"The Prince family has asked that the public refrain from vigilantism in favor of allowing the judicial system an opportunity to provide a measure of justice for Phoebe," she said.

Some students accused of participating in the bullying have been disciplined by the school and will not be returning to classes.

The Massachusetts Legislature cited Prince's death and the apparent suicide of 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover of Springfield last year when members passed anti-bullying legislation earlier this month.

South Hadley is among several college towns in western Massachusetts that pride themselves on their urbane cultural offerings, good schools and safe streets. After Phoebe's death, the community formed an anti-bullying task force that drew more than 400 people to its first meeting in February.

Robert Judge, a South Hadley selectman and task force member, said hundreds of people have become involved in hope that something good comes from the incident.

"Like most towns, we like to think of ourselves as a good place to live, and then this happens and your reputation is sullied nationally and even internationally, and people look at you differently, and they make assumptions," Judge said.

Scheibel said the teens will be issued summonses to appear in court on yet-undetermined dates. The teens who face criminal charges under the indictments announced Monday are:

— Sean Mulveyhill, 17, of South Hadley. Charged with statutory rape, violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly. A woman who answered the phone at his home Monday would not identify herself and told The Associated Press, "You don't know the full story."

— Kayla Narey, 17, of South Hadley. Charged with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly. A message left at a number listed to a Narey family was not immediately returned; another line was out of service.

— Austin Renaud, 18, of Springfield. Charged with statutory rape. A telephone number could not immediately be found.

— Ashley Longe, 16, of South Hadley. Charged as a youthful offender with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. A telephone number could not immediately be found.

— Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, of South Hadley. Charged as a youthful offender with stalking and violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. There was no telephone listing.

— Flannery Mullins, 16, of South Hadley. Charged as a youthful offender with stalking and violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. A message left at a Mullins home was not immediately returned.

Three 16-year-old South Hadley girls, whose names were not released, face delinquency charges that include the civil rights offense, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly.
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AP writer Denise Lavoie and Mark Pratt in Boston contributed to this report.

Significant announcement in Phoebe Prince case

Boston Herald

Significant’ announcement in Phoebe Prince case
Town on edge as DA set to speak today

By Edward Mason & Jessica Van Sack
Monday, March 29, 2010

The emotionally shaken small town of South Hadley is anxiously hoping for justice for Phoebe Prince today, as the district attorney is expected to reveal the results of her criminal investigation nearly 11 weeks after the young Irish girl allegedly hanged herself in response to merciless bullying.

“There needs to be some punishment for those kids (who bullied Prince). They need to be held accountable,” said Jeannine O’Brien, a South Hadley mom. “If nothing is done, nothing will change.”

Prince, 15, was reportedly found hanged Jan. 14 after allegedly enduring weeks of torment from bullies on Facebook and in the halls of South Hadley High School.

This morning, Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel is expected to announce the results of her probe into the death of Prince, said Elizabeth Dunphy Farris, an assistant district attorney, raising expectations in a town on edge.

“Everybody in town has been focused on this,” said Robert G. Judge, a South Hadley selectman who is also on the town’s anti-bullying task force. “And everybody knows about the anxiety of parents of students and teachers in the schools. Frankly, the stress upon students themselves has been in some ways as great.”

Many hope Scheibel’s announcement today will get the town moving toward closure after dealing with the horrific tragedy that brought with it unwanted international scrutiny.

“Everybody is crying out for justice and resolution,” said Mitch Brouillard, a South Hadley parent.

Scheibel did not return calls for comment, but the languid pace of her probe - coupled with a secretive school investigation in which the bullies were never identified or their punishment disclosed - has stirred worries no one would be held accountable in the young girl’s death.

“I pray there’s justice for Phoebe Prince,” said Donna Tower of South Hadley. “But there’s a great deal of frustration among the people in South Hadley. A lot of people - including teenagers - think nothing is going to happen.”

Prince’s death has drawn the media spotlight on the scourge of bullying, and how targets are relentlessly pursued on the Internet. It also stirred Beacon Hill lawmakers to move on long-stalled anti-bullying legislation. An anti-bullying bill is close to reaching Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk.

Judge said he hopes something positive will come from Prince’s tragic death.

“I hope the community is looking at this tragedy as an opportunity from which we can learn and pull together more closely as a town,” he said. “I hope that will happen.”
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Marie Szaniszlo contributed to this report.

Massachusetts State Ethics Commission - Conflict of Interest Law Training Program Completion - Click HERE

What Parents Need to Know about Child and Adolescent Depression- Community Workshop - March 22, 2010

 From: S. Clark [mailto:sclark@shschools.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 2:05 PM
To: 'Amy Foley'; 'Amy Sullivan'; 'Becky Mazur'; 'Bill Evans'; 'Bob Judge'; 'Chris Glenn'; 'Chris Sweklo'; 'Cindy Boyle'; 'Dan and Carol Brown'; 'Dan Smith'; 'David Gallagher'; David Labrie; 'Eleanor Small'; 'Emily Pritchard'; 'Emma Mulvaney'; 'Erica Faginski-Stark'; 'Gus Sayer'; 'Janna Darrow-Roux'; 'Jennifer Mullins'; 'Jennifer Tucker'; 'Jill Flanders'; 'Kelly St. Clair'; 'Lorraine Liantonio'; 'Maria Torres'; 'Maureen Clark'; 'Mike Pettengill'; 'Nancy Farnsworth'; 'Pam Stevens'; 'Ryan Lemieux'
Subject: Community Workshop - March 22, 2010

One of the outgrowths of the Anti-Bullying Task Force has been a new relationship with the Riverside Trauma Center around suicide prevention.  The Center has agreed to provide a workshop for our community on Monday, March 22 at 6:30 PM in the High School Auditorium.  The presenters will be Jim McCauley and Larry Berkowitz and the title of their workshop is, "What Parents Need to Know about Child and Adolescent Depression."

We thought that this would be an important event that members of our Task Force, as well as many parents, would want to hear.  Accordingly, we would like to cancel the Steering Committee meeting scheduled for Monday night and instead invite members of the Steering Committee to attend this workshop, which is an important part of our work.

We will resume Steering Committee meetings on Monday, April 5.  By that time some of the Task Force groups should be getting close to completing their reports.  When we meet on April 5 we will talk about what we would like to include in the Steering Committee's summary report and, if they are available, also begin to discuss the Task Force group reports.

The next meeting of the eight Task Force groups will take place on Monday, March 29.

Dr. Gus A. Sayer

Superintendent of Schools

"More politicians using social media -- including blogs, Facebook and Twitter -- to connect with constituents"

By Patrick Johnson, The Republican
March 19, 2010, 5:10PM

AMHERST - Not long after her April 2008 election to the Amherst School Committee, Catherine A. Sanderson thought she’d create a simple, little blog to keep voters informed about what the committee was doing and to gain voter feed back. “Those were my noble goals,” she said of the origin of her blog, myschoolcommitteeblog.blogspot.com.

In a matter of months, her simple, little blog grew and grew to the point of becoming neither simple nor little.

Her two to three posts per month grew to as many as 20, the monthly visitors tally reached as high as 10,000, and individual posts could generate as many as 150 reader comments.

It's become a lot of work, but Sanderson said the blog has more than accomplished its original purpose. “I ran on a platform of more communication and more transparency,” Sanderson said. “It’s hard to not communicate and not be transparent when you’re on a blog telling people, ‘Here is how I am going to vote and why.’”

Sanderson is one of many politicians at the local, state and federal levels who are realizing the importance of using new media to connect with the voters.

The late media critic A.J. Liebling once famously declared, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” But the abundance of simple blogging platforms, such as Wordpress or Google’s Blogger, and social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, make it so anyone can be their own publisher.

“There’s no filter,” said Westfield Mayor Daniel Knapik, who maintains Facebook and Twitter accounts. “People can get their message out to people exactly as they intend without it being altered, shortened or taken out of context.”

Across the state, politicians at every level and party are using social media to schmooze with voters and constituents alike.

“I use (Facebook) to keep in touch with friends and constituents. Hopefully, they are the same thing,” said Rep. Donald F. Humason Jr., R-Westfield.

Other local politicians doubling as bloggers include Northampton City Councilor Angela Plassman and Holyoke City Councilors Kevin Jourdain and Rebecca Lisi.

Sanderson said her efforts to reach voters directly has not been free from critics. There are some people who like her blog and some who hate it, she said.

Entrenched in the “hate it” camp, she said, are her husband, who complains it is too time consuming, and some of her School Committee colleagues.

“There are people on the committee who think it gives me a disproportionate amount of attention. That is 100 percent true,” she said.

If they want more attention, they should start their own blogs, she said. “Anyone can do it.”

In the same way, the ease of conveying information to your own personal network of friends, fans and followers makes Facebook and Twitter a natural among politicians at all levels of government and on both sides of the aisle.

In Massachusetts, Scott P. Brown has only been a senator for a little more than a month, but he's tops among Bay State politicians in terms of social networking. Brown's Facebook page has attracted 211,00 "fans", and his number of followers on Twitter stands at 22,000.

No one else is even close. Sen. John F. Kerry, for example, logs in with 9,000 Facebook fans and 4,900 Twitter followers.

Gov. Deval L. Patrick has nearly 5,000 friends and over 12,000 fans on Facebook and 10,000 Twitter followers. That may not seem like much compared to Brown, but it's more than any of his opponents in the upcoming gubernatorial race.

A report issued in February by the Congressional Research Service concluded that members of Congress are rapidly and avidly taking to forms of social media that did not exist 15 years ago. The advantages for each are the distribution speed (immediate) and cost (minimal).

Not coincidentally, the report notes, bulk mailings from Congress have dropped by 50 percent during this time.

Recent surveys have 205 of 538 members of Congress on Twitter accounts and 349 on Facebook.

Among members of Congress, one study noted usage varied greatly. During a two-month study, 16 congressmen tweeted at least 100 times in a 61-day span, including one who alone tallied 290.

But there were also several other members of Congress who had few if any tweets. That would probably include Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, D-Newton, who on June 18 posted his first and presumably last tweet: “I have one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.”

That day may be drawing nearer and nearer.

With the exception of U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, every member of the Massachusetts delegation has a Facebook page, but just five of the 12 are on Twitter, and only two, Brown and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., he of @Markeymemo, post with anything approaching regularity.

Among state legislators, those from Western Massachusetts have been slow to embrace Twitter, said state Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield.

Downing, who has 142 followers and tweets regularly, said Twitter and Facebook are becoming essential tools for politicians.

Facebook is great for organizing supporters, rallies and events, while Twitter specializes in getting messages to supporters very quickly. Traditional means - including press releases, interviews with the press, and public appearances - are still important, he said.

“It’s not about bypassing the media; it’s about supplementing it,” he said.

But effective use of social media can be enough to boost a candidate over the top, he said. Downing cited how Brown, during the special Senate election, was posting on Twitter and Facebook constantly, and by doing so helped create a sense of momentum among voters that carried him to victory.

The Brown campaign, and even President Obama’s successful run at the White House, show “just how powerful the social media can be if you harness it,” Downing said.

Agawam state Rep. Rosemary Sandlin recently announced her campaign for re-election via Twitter and Facebook.

Although she called herself a novice at each, she sees both as good ways to connect with voters.

“I’m learning more and more about Facebook. It’s a slow process. Twitter is my next mountain to climb,” she said.

Humason said he logs onto Facebook once or twice a week, but he draws the line at Twitter.

He said he is not so full of himself that he believes people need to know exactly what he is doing at any given moment.

Although he has a Blackberry and is theoretically capable of walking and texting at the same time, Humason said he has no desire to start lest he walk face first into a wall at the Statehouse.

Humason also questioned whether all this access to politicians through social media actually creates more transparency.

“Why are we trying to be transparent by twittering all the time?” he asked “Why don’t we do something that’s really transparent?”

For starters, he said, the Legislature should discuss the budget out in the open and stop using parliamentary tricks such as scheduling votes late into the night, he said.

Also leery of social media is state Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst. Although she represents one of the most Internet-savvy sections of the region, if not the state, Story said she places little stock in the social media. She is neither on Facebook nor Twitter, and has no plans to be.

“I don’t think it’s necessary and in many cases a complete waste of time,” she said. “I’m in meetings with people who are texting all the time. It’s annoying and rude.”

To those who say Story is inaccessible, she says, “My telephone number is in the phone book, and it’s in the newspaper.”

That’s her home number, she pointed out, not her regional office. She said when people reach her at home, they usually apologize as if they got through to her by mistake. “I have to say ‘No, this is the right number,’” she said.

Story said she prefers to do her social networking the traditional way: by actually going out and socializing with people.

“I like to go to events. I like to talk to people,” she said. “I see people in Stop & Shop and talk to them.”

Story said she even likes to talk to reporters.

“You’re the second one I’ve talked to today,” she said during a recent telephone call to her home.

South Hadley welcomes leaders - Daily Hampshire Gazette - March 4, 2010

To the editor:

The Feb. 24 edition of a local newspaper contained a story titled, "South Hadley races settled," which referred to the uncontested April 2010 town election. The story quoted a member of last year's Charter Commission stating that change is needed to encourage more people to get involved in town government.

The story quoted her as saying the lack of contested races "is an ongoing testament about the lack of leadership in this town."

I supported the recommendation of the Charter Commission and I still think that "change is needed" in the structure of our town government. However, fortunately, we do have individuals and organizations that provide leadership in South Hadley.

Good examples include the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, and most recently, the Selectboard in its proposal to form a Youth Commission and in its work with the School Committee to address the need for greater civility in our community.

If you think that a public official is not providing "leadership" you should contact that official, express your opinion to him or her and ask if you can help to bring about the change you seek. Apart from elected officials, many organizations contribute "leadership" to our community, including Know Your Town, groups working to improve local food distribution, local political organizations and others. Getting in contact with these local officials and community service organizations is easy.

If a resident wants more leadership in South Hadley, he or she can set an example for others by providing leadership in whatever aspects of our community's life is of most interest. For those who do not wish to run for office, consider joining one of our good nonprofit organizations or participating in the several ad hoc initiatives under way to improve our town. South Hadley needs and welcomes more leaders!

Robert G. Judge
South Hadley