A 10-year-old boy from Indiana recently committed suicide after reportedly being repeatedly bullied at school.
Fox 59 reported that 10-year-old Sammy Teusch, a fourth-grade student at Greenfield Intermediate School in Greenfield, Indiana, died by suicide on May 5. The outlet reported that the boy’s parents said the 10-year-old had been subjected to physical and emotional abuse at school.
According to Fox 59, the boy’s parents claimed their son was physically bullied on a school bus just a week before his death and that he had been cornered in a school bathroom by bullies in another incident. “I have his broken glasses sitting over there in a memorial shrine that my kids made,” Sam Teusch, the boy’s father, said.
According to KPLC, the 10-year-old parents said they attempted to contact the school 20 times regarding bullying issues at school.
“How could God take my kid from here? Of course that was going through my head,” Teusch told Fox 59. “God didn’t take my kid; hate did.” The 10-year-old’s father added that he wants his son to “never be forgotten.”
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A GoFundMe page organized by the 10-year-old’s family described Sammy Teusch as “the best kid with a wonderful personality.”
“He was smart, funny, charming and deeply empathetic. He brightened the lives of anyone he encountered and was the life of the ‘party.’ I know my baby brother didn’t deserve this,” the GoFundMe page states. “A kid with so much love and so much light gone too soon. None of this makes sense and I don’t think it ever will but what I do know is that he deserves a proper send off. Me and my family are asking for help to do just that.”
The 10-year-old’s death is currently under investigation by the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation and the Greenfield Police Department.
In a statement to Fox 59, Greenfield-Central Community Schools said the child’s death was “tragic” and that it had caused “tremendous grief” for the community. The school district explained that staff members had “worked with the Teusch family quite a bit over the last 18 months.”
“Contact between school personnel and the parents was frequent,” the school district stated. “The parents did report the manner of death as a suicide, and we are investigating their claims related to bullying.”
In a May 10 press release, Greenfield Police Department Chief Brian Hartman warned that “rumors” were spreading throughout the community regarding the cause of Sammy Teusch’s death.
“There are a lot of assumptions that this death was a result of bullying,” Hartman said. “This may or not be the case. We will find out through the investigation.”
A picture of the 10-year-old was shared Wednesday on social media by the account 901Lulu.
