Student who committed suicide had trousers pulled down on day of death

The Mainichi Shimbun
November 16, 2006
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/news/20061116p2a00m0na023000c.html

(Photo) School principal Shuji Katsuma, second from right, and other school officials apologize over the student's suicide.

KAMIHAYASHI, Niigata -- A 14-year-old student who committed suicide on Tuesday apparently after being bullied had his trousers forcibly pulled down by a classmate and was teased a number of times, it has emerged.

When officials from Hirabayashi junior high school, which the boy had attended, visited his home early on Wednesday, they did not explain to his bereaved family that his trousers had been pulled down. The local education board is investigating the death, considering the possibility that periodic bullying prompted the boy to commit suicide.

School officials said the 14-year-old student had his trousers pulled down by a classmate in front of several other classmates during a group cleaning session on Tuesday afternoon. Afterwards the student reportedly sat through a lesson crying.

A teacher in charge who noticed that the boy was not acting normally asked him if he was all right. He replied, "I'm all right," but when going home from school with three classmates, he reportedly said to them, "I want to die."

The student had participated in an after-school committee meeting and club activities as normal.

Sources close to the school said a game in which students fooled around and pulled down other students' trousers had caught on at the school.

In a news conference on the suicide, school officials offered an apology over the boy's death.

"He was a serious-minded student who was kind and worked diligently, and he often greeted people. It is truly a tragic incident, and we want to treat it with the utmost seriousness," the school's principal, Shuji Katsuma said. He added that the school wanted to investigate whether pulling the student's trousers down could be considered bullying, and spend time investigating the relationship between incidents at the school and the boy's death. (Mainichi)

November 16, 2006

Boy, 14, found hanged; bullying link seen

The Yomiuri Shimbun
November 16, 2006
Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20061116TDY02011.htm

A 14-year-old middle school student was found Tuesday night hanged in a warehouse owned by his family here, police said.

The boy, a second-year student of Kamihayashimura-run Hirabayashi Middle School, was confirmed dead about an hour after his mother found him at 9:30 p.m.

The police said the boy apparently killed himself.

The police and the local board of education said it was highly possible that bullying triggered his suicide as the boy told his friends that he wanted to die after one of his classmates pulled his pants down in front of other students.

According to school officials and other sources, the classmate pulled his pants and underwear down in front of several students--including girls--when he was cleaning the school building after the fourth class.

"It was hard to be watched by the girls [with his pants down]," he was quoted as telling one of his school friends.

He also told three friends when he parted with them on his way home that he wanted to die, they said.

The teacher in charge of the boy's class noticed his eyes were wet during lunch and asked him why he was crying, but the boy would not tell him the reason, they said.

After the teacher asked the students during the fifth class whether they knew what had happened, the student who pulled the boy's pants down came forward and said to the teacher, "I'm sorry."

When the teacher talked to the boy again, he said, "I'm all right," they said.

The student attended a student's committee meeting and activities of the wind-instrument music club that he belonged to, they said.

The school gave the students a questionnaire on bullying in May and November. In the questionnaire, the student did not report that he had been bullied.

"We haven't detected any bullying, but we take the incident quite seriously and we'll look into this case," the school's Principal Shuji Katsuma said at a press conference Wednesday.

===

Kin: Bullying led to her death

OSAKA--The father and elder brother of a 12-year-old girl who committed suicide in Tondabayashi, Osaka Prefecture, on Sunday said at a press conference Tuesday that she likely took her life as the result of bullying.

Kazuo Okawa and his son, Toshio, revealed the girl's name for the first time and showed mementos such as a picture, taken with a mobile phone camera, of Rie singing karaoke with her family on the day before she jumped to her death from a public housing complex.

They said they hope that by speaking publicly about Rie's death, they could encourage others who are suffering not to give up hope amid the recent string of bullied children committing suicide.

"I think she did it because she was bullied, but I want to know the truth," Kazuo, 49, said about the death of his daughter, who was a middle school student. He said Rie had said she was being bullied at school, but had not gone into any details.

Kazuo said Rie often came home looking depressed, but when Rie's mother asked her if she should speak with her teacher, Rie told her not to as she would get harassed again if others found out her mother had intervened.

"It's like a dream," he said. "I keep thinking that tomorrow I'll hear her say, 'Good morning, dad.'"

"[The day before the suicide] we all went to sing karaoke for the first time in a long time, and she really looked like she was enjoying herself. After we got home, she played with her elder sister and went to her room. That was the last I saw of her," Toshio said.

A classmate had said earlier Rie had been teased because she was short.

Kazuo said: "She had an illness that prevented her from growing taller. When she started middle school, she said, 'I'm going to get taller,' and had been receiving injections of growth hormone. Rather than worry about her illness, she tried to overcome it."

Toshio, 28, said: "She sometimes came home from school angry. When she was in primary school, she was always mentioning the names of her favorite teachers, but after starting middle school, she didn't say anything about her teachers. I wish we could have talked about this as a family."

"The thing I'm most angry about is the fact that the people who caused this haven't apologized. Their apology won't solve anything, but I want to get to the bottom of this," he added.

(Nov. 16, 2006)

Niigata boy latest in spate of teen suicides

The Japan Times
Thursday, Nov. 16, 2006
Source: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20061116a5.html

Compiled from Kyodo, AP

NIIGATA -- A 14-year-old boy was found hanged Tuesday night in an apparent suicide in a hut on his parent's property in the village of Kamihayashi, Niigata Prefecture.

Police said Wednesday that no suicide note has been found. The local board of education said it had spoken to the junior high school he attended but has not yet confirmed whether he had been a victim of bullying, which has been cited as the reason behind a spate of recent suicides.

However, the school principal told reporters that a classmate had pulled the victim's pants down on Tuesday.

The boy disappeared at around 6 p.m. after he returned home from school.

He was found dead at around 9:30 p.m., according to police.

The suicide comes in the wake of several others involving students that have shocked the public. Three teenagers have killed themselves in separate cases over the last few weeks, apparently after being bullied by their peers.

Since last week, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry has received 16 anonymous letters believed to be from students planning to commit suicide due to being bullied at school.

The number of minors who took their lives has risen in the last decade, from less than 500 in 1996 to 608 in 2005.

Girl jumps to death

An 18-year-old girl committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of her school in Sapporo.

The girl was found lying in the school compound Tuesday morning after leaping from a vacant room, police said. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Police said she left a suicide note on a teacher's desk saying she was going to kill herself because she was having a hard time with an illness.

The Japan Times
(C) All rights reserved

14-year-old boy found hanged

The Mainichi Shimbun
November 15, 2006
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20061115p2a00m0na023000c.html

KAMIHAYASHI, Niigata -- A 14-year-old boy hanged himself after allegedly being bullied by classmates, police said Wednesday.

No suicide note has been found. Investigators suspect that he committed suicide and are investigating his motives.

At about 9:35 p.m. on Tuesday, the second-year student at a Kamihayashi municipal junior high school was found hanged in a hut on the premises of his home by his mother, local police said.

Police are investigating the allegations that classmates had forcibly dropped the boy's trousers either at the school or on his way home earlier in the day. (Mainichi)

November 15, 2006

14-year-old Niigata boy hangs himself

Japan Today (Kyodo)
Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 14:10 EST
Source: http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/390436

NIIGATA — A 14-year-old boy was found to have hanged himself Tuesday night in an apparent suicide in a hut near his home in the village of Kamihayashi, Niigata Prefecture, police said Wednesday.

The local education board said it conferred with the junior high school he attended but has not confirmed whether there had been bullying of him at school. Police said no suicide note has been found. The boy, a second-year student at the school, went missing after he returned home from school at around 6 p.m. Tuesday and was found dead at around 9:30 p.m. that night, police said.

© 2006 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.