BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala.  October 5 2019 News 5 has confirmed through police and family members that one Baldwin County student took their own life, and two others tried. These all happened within three days.

The students that tried go to Spanish Fort Middle School and Fairhope Intermediate School.

The Daphne East Student Elementary School student died. Police are investigating that case.

In the Fairhope case, the child’s father believes bullying was a factor.

“He wrote a note, it said ‘If I cannot handle the little things now, how can I expect to handle the bigger things later,” the father said.

He says shortly before his son’s incident, a group of kids played a joke on him, locking up his backpack so he couldn’t get his books out.

After he heard of his son’s case, he found out about the other two cases in his neighboring cities. He says he’s speaking out because he wants the county to do more to address the gravity of this situation.

We asked Superintendent Eddie Tyler about the case.

“Well, as superintendent, I’m aware of all that, yes,” he said. “And that’s just something, generally, in respect to those families, when you start talking about those kinds of deaths, you generally don’t comment on that.”

He went on to say there are laws that require students to address bullying issues, and that the school district did provide grief counselors to the Daphne students.

Spanish Fort Police Chief Dave Edgar calls this “alarming.” He wants parents to be aware of the situation, and use this as a moment to make mental health less of a taboo topic.

Edgar encourages students, parents – anyone, to reach out to their local police department for help. He encourages them to do so, and says no judgement will be passed. He also encourages students to reach out to School Resource Officers, school counselors, and faculty and staff.

The Baldwin County Board of Education is holding an event October 10 called “Shatter the Silence,” which addresses suicide.

WKRG

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