The father of the tormented Indiana young boy Sammy Teusch, who committed suicide a year after his 10-year-old son’s battle against the bullying which led him to suicide, said it is disgusting and devastating there has been no accountability on the side of educators who failed him.
According to Sammy Teusch’s father Samuel, the ten-year-old had pointed towards a boy on the field and told his parents “that’s him as they walked out of his brother’s soccer game on May 4, 2024, with a heavy heart.
The boy that Sammy picked out was just one of the classmates who harassed him at school. And just one week back, this boy had stuck him in a garbage bin while other people were laughing.
At first the kids in Greenfield elementary were calling verbal abuse at Sammy in regards to his looks, like his glasses and teeth and over time it escalated to physical violence Teusch told Daily Mail.
The youngster had been using glasses for starters until the new arrived – $ 525 specs that he prayed would save him from the bullies.
‘Helpless’
The family had already rang the bell, contacting the school district very often, asking for help being on the verge of desperation. Yet the bullying continued.
His dad’s works say that Sammy pleaded with his teachers to do something, but was “ignored”.
After an event several months earlier when Sammy was hit on the school bus and “got into trouble for it,” Teusch remembers his son saying, “Daddy, it’s okay. [Educators] don’t care. They’re not listening to me.”
“He felt helpless… And the school said to us each time that they do not accept bullying and they were going to do everything they could to end this, but this never ended.
When speaking with People, Teusch revealed that the family got no support from the school.
“I’d talk to the school. They are saying: ‘Sammy’s a discipline problem’. And I’m like, ‘What? Obviously – he’s underneath a desk and in the closet and in the bathroom. ?What’s he hiding from?’ “, the heartbroken dad said.
Sammy’s last morning
Teusch caught his youngest son cuddling in bed with his mother the Sunday morning after the soccer game.
After being asked what he wanted for breakfast, Sammy told his father that he wanted pancakes.
Keen to please, the doting dad went to the store with one of Sammy’s older brothers, Xander.
When the duo got home and summoned Sammy for Pancakes, Xander 13, came across the hanging of the fourth grader in his bedroom, leaving his parents and three siblings heart broken.
The family of Teusch feels that two years tortured by bullying – with cruel comments telling Sammy to go kill himself – caused such a devastating loss.
Teusch said “he wasn’t depressed… he was a happy little boy,” he added there were no signs indicating his son was suicidal, Teusch told the Daily Mail. He was so full of life, being loving and caring”…”He was literally turned to death within a moment and he thought that this is his way out”. I still can’t believe that he’s gone”.
Childhood suicide
Studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicate that about 20% of the 5 students within the ages of 12-18 years are bullied at school annually in the United States.
And although suicide among children less than 10 years old can still be described as a rarity, the experts warn of its rising danger, more deadly than any significant medical illness – a risk of suicide among teenagers is “responsible for more deaths among youths ages 10 to 24 years than any single major medical illness”.
“Everybody loved Sammy. He had 100 friends but he had six to eight kids who tormented him to the grave and I won’t let this happen to another family’ said, Teusch who is determined to sensitize the society on suicide in children.
”I want to be the last parent crying on television,” Teusch said to ABC, “We all cherished Sammy,” he said about his beloved son. To an extent, in many ways he was our leader.”
No accountability
While the Teusch family has to live still with the unsustainable burden of losing their beloved Sammy, that grief is now accompanied by a peaceful, powerful rage — a strong urge for justice.
Teusch says that the students who bullied his son without mercy in the school have gone unscathed.
What is even worse, the tragic incident has also been largely overlooked by school officials at Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation, which named in a wrongful death claim submitted by the family.
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The complaint paints the heart wrenching details of Sammy’s final months and includes several school officials, both of whom are still principal and superintendent today, Principal Branson Curtis and Superintendent Dr. Harold Olin respectively.
According to Teusch it is disgusting, shocking and devastating. “There has been no accountability. This is on a Sunday, and come the Monday, in they go back into school as if nothing ever happened and it is not dealt with, and no words are said.
What kind of message does that say…. The bullies would continue to bully other kids since they’ll feel it is right… they would say ‘I killed one and I got away with it’.
He says, “And if this can happen to Sammy, this can happen to any child on Earth”.
‘The world through Sammy’s eyes’
When referring to Sammy’s funky new glasses that unfortunately arrived two days after he took his life, Teusch adds, “Whenever I miss him, I can pick those glasses up and still see the world through Sammy’s eyes…We all miss him terribly… but in his name we’re going to change the world”.
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The Teusch family’s desire is not for revenge but for accountability, consciousness, and change – in order for no other child, and no other family, has to suffer from such unthinkable pain.