everyone say goodbye to brandy vela.
this story was so sad to me that i had to post.
so brandy killed herself over intense bullying.
the worst part?
she committed suicide in front of her family.
this is the story via cbs news…
Family members of a Houston-area high school student who killed herself are rallying for tighter laws against cyberbullying.
Brandy Vela’s family says cyberbullying pushed the 18-year-old over the edge, leading her to shoot herself in the chest Tuesday afternoon at the family’s Texas City home as family members watched.
Her father, Raul Vela, said she had been receiving abusive text messages for months from bullies using an untraceable smartphone application. Her father said someone made a fake Facebook page of her, creating another cyberbullying medium.
On Tuesday, Brandy sent an email to her family members telling them she was going to kill herself, CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV reports. They rushed home and found her alive.
“We tried to persuade her to put the gun down, but she was determined,” Raul Vela told KHOU-TV. “She said she’d come too far to turn back. It was very unfortunate that I had to see that. It’s hard when your daughter tells you to turn around. You feel helpless.”
“I heard someone crying,” Brandy’s 22-year-old sister, Jacqueline Vela, told KPRC-TV of Houston, “so I ran upstairs and I looked in her room, and she’s against the wall and she has a gun pointed at her chest and she’s just crying and crying and I’m like, ‘Brandy, please don’t. Brandy, no.”
Jacqueline Vela said she went to her parents’ room, “and I just heard the shot and my dad just yelled, ‘Help me. Help me. Help me.’”
“I was almost certain that I could persuade her to put that gun down. It didn’t work. She pulled the trigger,” Raul Vela said.
Her final cellphone text to her family was, “I love you so much just remember that please and I’m so sorry for everything.”
Her family said the harassment focused mainly on Brandy’s weight.
“They would make dating websites of her, and they would put her number and they would put her picture (on the sites), and lie about her age and say she is giving herself up for sex for free, to call her,” said Jacqueline Vela.
The family said they reported the bullying to the Texas City school district and several law enforcement agencies.
“School was a safe environment for Brandy,” said school district spokeswoman Melissa Tortorici. “She had a lot of friends and was thought of warmly by her peers and teachers. She did bring it to the school’s attention before Thanksgiving break that she was getting harassing messages to her cellphone outside of school. Our deputy investigated it, and the app that was being used to send the messages was untraceable. We encouraged her to change her phone number.”
Brandy Vela changed her number, but bullies always found her, her family said.
“We have lots of incident reports, and they always say the same thing: They can’t do anything about it,” Jacqueline Vela said.
A Texas City Police Department statement says it continues to investigate the Velas’ complaints. Jacqueline Vela told KPRC that she and her siblings have a good idea who may have been behind some of these attacks and have been assisting in the investigation.
The father said that he hopes for stricter laws against cyberbullying and greater awareness of the problem to give some meaning to his daughter’s death.
well this is right up this she hyena’s alley:
you know that is going to be her cause to eliminate as first lady.
she can start here.
this has to be one of her alleged friends tho.
how else did they get her new number?
i know one thing tho…
they need to start arresting jackals and hyenas for this.
when assholes do this,
and someone kills themselves because of it,
then the blood is all on their hands.
even these baiters and outers are not immune to it.
you truly don’t know someone’s mental health.
i bet that would stop it.
the problem is,
everyone will claim being bullied over constructive criticism.
Thoughts?
rip to brandy vela.
i wish she would have held on a little longer.
lowkey: i know that will scar that family for life.
right before the holidays too.
that is the type of shit that makes someone crazy.
my prayers are with them.
article and picture credited: cbs news
no ‘games’ can prepare someone for the real world. Everyone reacts to things differently and who’s to say what emotional state she was in. Suicide occurs when the victm feels hopeless. I also heard of the things people were saying about Trumps son. Being autistic doesnt mean being mentally retarded so when i read the comments from people i just cringed America is full of aint people raising aint shit kids and until we teah our kids to shut the hell up and accept people differences and bully on some dumb shit they’ll never learn. They’ll continue to be suicides and also school shootings as a result of intense bullying. You would think with all the violence going on in the world kids will be smart and leave folks the hell alone. a guy tried to bully me in high school until i handled his ass…this couldnt have been my niece or relative because I would have went up to that school with a gun in my hand looking for those who sent the text
Hopefully, the future 1st lady is serious about it, since her autistic son is constantly being bullied.
The bullies has held responsible by the law if someone end up killing himself because of them. I hope they find them. And i agree It had to be one or many of her “friends” if they always managed to get her new number. I wanted to ask how these bullies feel now, but those sociopath never felle anything so… It’s really sad. I really hope the police find them.
Now don’t shoot me but i have to say that, parents need to built their children stronger. Life is hard, people are evil, children need to grow thick skin to survive. I remember something chelsea clinton said, a game that she played with her parents, where they attatcked each other viciously, to be prepared to face the world. My mother use to do that (except it wasn’t a game with her). I really think it could help.
And i know she has some serious mental issues but killing herself in front of her family, damn. I mean i you send a mail, that’s kina a cry for help. You could have killed yourself and let a letter. You parent find you alive, tell you they love, but that’s not enough? I know it’s not her fault, but i’m kinda mad at her to, she could have though about her family, what it will do to them to see that.
That’s really a sad story. May she rest in peace, prayers for her family.
I totally agree with you on the part about the parents.
I have said the same thing for some years now. parents needs to stop babying these 18 year olds and start telling them how the real world really is.
like you said the real world is a bitch to life in. once the parents take off the kiddy gloves and start telling the truth to these children. we going keep hearing these type of stories.
Reading stories like this makes me so sad. Her family will never be right from witnessing her doing that. May she rip.
This is a sad story, but I am not for any strong cyber bullying laws, anytime these types of laws come about because of some tragedy it seems like more innocent people and more people of color are punished than europeans. Many of these types of laws are in our schools and many children have been caught up unfairly as a result often having their lives ruin, and it seems to be applied to more people who look like me than the snow people.
Sadly many parents do not do enough to equip their children with healthy self esteem which would go a long way in shutting down the bullying that comes from growing up. In this case, it seems like someone drop the ball in getting her help. Maybe I am bit too cynical but how do you keep getting text messages from unknown sources if you change your phone number, her parents sound like many parents these days, they have no clue what is really going on with their children and what they are doing. Just like the other story with the dude who may have murdered his family, this story has a few holes in it for me that is not adding up.
As far as Melania Trump-Girl Bye, your husband is going to Fukk up this country so bad that by the time he is finished, we will be happy to just have cyber bullying to worry about. You wanna shut it down due to you and your family being harassed, she probably could care less about anybody else and she can start by having her husbands Twitter fingers shut down.
“Sadly many parents do not do enough to equip their children with healthy self esteem which would go a long way in shutting down the bullying that comes from growing up.”
^Tajan…you said it right there! Parents today are too busy letting TV and social media raise their kids, or they have this “fairy tale” concept of raising their kids, where they want to shield them from everything. You can’t do that in this day and age. Kids have easy access to information, so it’s better coming from YOU than their friends or strangers! I appreciate growing up when I did because I literally had a village raising me. It seemed everyone knew my parents, so getting into trouble was scarce…but it did happen. LOL
If my neighbors or friends of my parents saw us doing something, they got in our ass, and then the parents got on you too! Not good! You don’t have that nowadays. You tell a parent their child did something, they will curse you out, tell you to mind your business, or call you a liar.
Another thing is that some parents want to be their child’s friend instead of being a parent. That’s the problem. The child won’t respect you if you don’t establish rules and/ore boundaries. The child should be able to come to you with any problem that they have. And a lot of kids don’t have that relationship with their parents, because the parent won’t let them do whatever they want to do…or what “everyone else” is doing.
It sounds like these parents were not very aware of what was going on in their child’s life and probably didn’t help build up her self-esteem enough as a younger child. My heart goes out to them, but they are probably kicking themselves now trying to figure out at what point and/or what did we not see what was happening.
This was a very sad story! Kids today are more evil than when I was coming up, not only that, they’re softer!
In my day, if someone bullied you, you’d knock the shyt out of them and problem solved! LOL
Today if you hit someone, they’re coming back to shoot or kill you.
Melania needs to start in her own house before she tries to attack cyberbullies. Her husband is one!
Very sad. Some think it’s just harmless fun. But what they don’t realize is they playing with a person’s life.
Whoever did should be charge with murder.
^110%.