[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]A beautiful Staten Island teenager threw herself in front of a city bus after a group of mean girls at her high school tormented her for months and an older boy broke her heart, her family said.
Amanda Diane Cummings, 15, of Dongan Hills, was carrying a suicide note in her pocket when she was mortally injured by the bus two days after Christmas.
“I can’t live without [him]. There’s no life at all,” the lovesick sophomore wrote in the note, according to relatives.
She succumbed to her injuries on Monday, but in the hours before and after her suicide attempt,her family and friends frantically texted her cell phone and posted messages on her Facebook wall pleading with her to come home.
Devastated relatives said Tuesday that Amanda was a popular girl bullied by a group of female classmates at New Dorp High School since the beginning of the academic year.
“No matter what she did, they picked on her,” her cousin Ashley Gilman, 20, told the News.
“They made fun of her heels, her hair, her make-up - everything.”
Gilman said Amanda recently confided she was dating a 19-year-old boy whom the ringleader of the bullies also had a crush on. The romantic rivalry escalated tensions between the two, Gilman said.
The week before Christmas, Amanda’s bully threatened her, but the young girl did not want to report the incident for fear of being bullied even more, relatives said.
“My cousin passed away because she was picked on. My cousin passed away because people are cruel,” Gilman said. “She hid a lot.”
Amanda finally opened up to her family about the extent of the bullying on Dec. 26 and showed her mother a barrage of texts between her and her high school nemesis and her and the older boy.
The next day, the taunting resumed and the 15-year-old allegedly grew distraught after receiving a message.
She left the house, claiming she was going to a friend’s house, and posted “I’ll cry without you” on her Facebook page. The message sent her mother, Cecile Weber, into a panic.
“Everybody was trying to tell her to come home,” another cousin, Brandy Henderson, said. “She was just incredibly emotional ... She was upset and crying.”
“She texted her mother, ‘I’m on the way home,’ but half an hour later she never showed up,” Henderson added.
In the early hours of Dec. 28, the teenager’s mother received a call that her critically injured daughter was at Staten Island University Hospital.
Yet even as the girl fought for her young life, the online taunts continued, her uncle Keith Cummings said.
“LMFAO she jumped in front of a bus,” Cummings said someone wrote on her Facebook wall.
“Once a ho, always a ho,” another kid wrote, according to Cummings.
The posts no longer appear on Amanda’s Facebook page, which is now flooded with heartfelt comments from friends.
Cummings said his niece had told family she wanted to kill herself a couple of years ago, but there was no warning this this time.
“There was nothing, there was no sign," he said. “They tormented her ... There has to be justice.”
Department of Education officials refused to comment on allegations of bullying at the school and New Dorp High School principal Deirdre DeAngelis did not return calls.
Amanda’s schoolmates said Tuesday that some student gave her a hard time.
“On Facebook, her boyfriend put up a status when they broke up, and people were bullying her,” 16-year-old junior Christina Tobin said. “I heard a lot of stories about bullying. These other girls were calling her names.”
The school held a moment of silence for Amanda during third period Tuesday.
A crisis team offered counseling to students and staff following the tragedy, spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said.
Amanda’s distraught family set up a memorial blog about the sophomore, where she is described as a gentle girl who loved animals and liked listening to Katy Perry music.
She had even dyed her blond hair jet black in homage to the popular singer.
“This is a little girl that touched everyone's life,” cousin Henderson said.
“She was a delicate girl. She wasn’t a little fighter or a rough kid ... We are all heartbroken.”
Source: Staten Island teen kills self by jumping in front of bus after being bullied - NY Daily News
by Pimpin' 1/23/2012, 9:07 pm
Subject: Jan 3 - Staten Island teen kills self by jumping in front of bus after being bullied