RIP - Jaheem Herrera

You could title this post "Columbine Take 2", and indeed the April 16th suicide-death of 11-year-old Jaheem Herrera (which you can read about here) is spookily close to the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine shootings. . What ties the two stories together of course is the senseless bullying. Jaheem got tired of being called (among others things) "gay", tired of his school teachers and counselors doing nothing about it, tired of his mom having to get involved because nothing was being done, and most of all, tired of being called hateful names every single day for no reason. . Let's be clear - the school administration, although a bunch of buffoons - are not criminally liable here. Negligent, yes. But not criminally so. They were clueless before Jaheem hung himself, they are clueless today, and tomorrow they will wake up just as clueless. You can't fix what you don't notice. . And the bullying will go on, because no one knows or cares how to stop it. I'm sure Dunaire Elementary School will say some nice platitudes (actually, they already have), have a moment of silence for Jaheem (during which the bullies will snicker), vow to be more vigilant, change absolutely nothing, and then settle back and hope to God this story is forgotten as soon as possible. . Just keep in mind one thing, Dumb-Airs Elementary School. Not every kid who gets bullied goes home and quietly hangs himself with his belt. Some of them get really angry and return to the school with assault weapons. Just ask Columbine.