When a person kills himself, why are so many so quick to blame everyone but the killer? Perhaps this has something to do with the emotional reluctance to assign blame to people who victimize themselves. It's as cathartic to relieve the guilty party from responsibility as it is to assign blame to people who had no direct (or perhaps even no indirect) role in the loss of life. A suicide of a beautiful teenager in Western Massachusetts has sparked mass indictments against her classmates, anti-bullying bills in the state legislature, and the type of hysteria made famous in this region 318 years ago. The facts of this case are murky, but what seems clear is that a fifteen-year-old Irish immigrant had conflicts with classmates prior to taking her own life. Not everything is a legal matter, even when somebody very likable dies. This is good politics for the district attorney to go after students (but not teachers or administrators). But, like the legal lynching of Tookie Amirault in Massachusetts in the '80s, this is an abuse of law. The written legal code, not public outrage, should govern prosecutorial conduct. When we think with our hearts we disgrace our heads.

From what I've heard of the incident the case is not simply a matter of people trying to assign blame for a tragic suicide. One of the charges against two of the people is statutory rape!
Beyond that charge she was treated so badly on a daily basis that if it had been occuring anywhere except in school the people doing it would have been arrested much earlier.
The girl's suicide is making the authorities take the the appropriate action.
Dan if you were harrassed and bullied EVERY day that you walked out the door wouldn't you go to the authorities?
I would.

Of course, the homosexual lobby has ceased on the suicide of a non-homosexual teenager to insert yet more pro-homosexual propoganda into the curriculum under the "anti-bullying law". Approved unanimously, of course! Even the Republicans on Beacon Hill (both of them) boted for it too. I'm guessing no one read the bill.

So at least the poor girl's death served someone's purposes.

By the way, my sister is a teacher at that school. She is very upset because she thinks that the media is doing a poor job. Not that I know much more about the case than anyone else, I just know that my sister, who possesses at least a little firsthand knowledge, thinks that the press is reporting a lot of rumors.

Ben your an idiot!! Homosexual lobby, stick to facts you pinhead