Eighth Grader Commits Suicide After Being Threatened by School Official

[dogday]

With Jail Time for Organizing Walkouts

An eighth grader in California killed himself two weeks ago after being threatened by a school official for participating in the student immigrant rights walkouts. Anthony Soltero, 14, died after he shot himself in the head on March 30th. We speak with the attorney representing Soltero's mother.

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Along with the mass demonstrations, tens of thousands of students have staged walkouts across the country in support of immigrant rights. Students defied school lockdowns and strict bans to take to the streets in unprecedented levels and participate in the immigration protests.

But tragedy struck two weeks ago in California when an eight grader killed himself after being threatened by a school official for participating in the walkouts. His family claimed a school administrator pulled Soltero aside on March 30 and told him he could be jailed for three years, banished from his graduation and his parents could be fined for his involvement in the protest.

Anthony Soltero died after he shot himself in the head later that day. He was just 14 years-old.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/11/1426249

[Clark2008]

1. Not that I'm supporting the school official, but obviously

this sad young boy had other problems.

I can't imagine my child shooting himself because someone said some cross words to him.

This is very sad. I feel so sorry for this boy's parents. :cry:

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Not necessarily.

At that age, when hormones are raging, kids are likelier to kill themselves than at any other time of their lives. And how did the threats come across? "I can have you suspended, I can have your parents fined, I can keep you from graduating" or "I will suspend you, I will fine your parents, I will not let you graduate"? Even if the kid only interpreted "I can" as "I will" he could believe that he had just ruined his life. There are kids every year who commit suicide because they didn't get into the right school.

It doesn't take a lot wrong to push a teenager over the edge, and this was one hell of a push.

[johnnie]

2. Sad

This is not on the school. It would seem to me that this child had a lot more problems than what the school official said to him.

[400Years]

3. the school official should be fired for making baseless threats

to a student.

[countingbluecars]

4. Why did he have access to a gun?

The school official is not the only one at fault here.

[AlphaCentauri]

5. there was another incident of desperation

snip

What motivated Manuel Juvenal Ortiz to take hostage an employee of the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles? Why did he call the media before being struck down by a police sharpshooter? What message was he trying to send with the posters he wore on his chest?

These are some of the questions we have asked ourselves, those of us who have closely followed the unusual incident carried out by Ortiz, the 19-year-old youth who broke into a Mexican consulate last Nov. 11 with a pistol that turned out to be filled with blanks.

Fortino Herreros, Manuel’s elementary school teacher, does not doubt that, by assaulting the consulate, the young man wanted to protest the mistreatment of immigrants. According to his teacher, interviewed by Francisco Robles, La Opinión’s correspondent in Mexico, Manuel constantly complained about the little attention given to undocumented immigrants by authorities in Mexico and in this country.

http://crm.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=8c223c22bd38f25808a7b587630e7f18