After Boy’s Suicide, Questions About Missed Signs
Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
Nearly every pew was filled at
a funeral service for Bart Palosz, which was held at the Holy Name of
Jesus Church in Stamford, Conn., on Friday.
By KRISTIN HUSSEY and JOHN LELAND
Published: August 30, 2013
GREENWICH, Conn. — Boys picked on Bart Palosz almost from the moment his
family moved to this affluent town seven years ago. They taunted him
for his accent — he was born in Poland — pushed him into bushes or down
stairs and smashed his new Droid cellphone, his sister said.
Bart shot himself on Tuesday, one day after starting his sophomore year at Greenwich High School.
On Tuesday, after the first day of school, Bart killed himself with the
family shotgun. He was 15, just beginning his sophomore year at
Greenwich High School.
His death has left the community — which has 9,000 students in its
school district — asking whether it did enough to address the bullying
or to provide support for Bart, who had posted his suicidal thoughts,
and details of a possible earlier attempt, on social media.
His sister, Beata Palosz, 18, said Bart loved computers and hoped to go
to New York University to study technology. He was an active member of
Boy Scout Troop 9.
But Ms. Palosz also described a pattern of bullying that escalated as
her brother got older. In the past, she had tried to look out for him at
school. This fall, she was starting her first year of college and he
was alone: a tall, slightly overweight boy who did not fight back
against his tormentors and who had assured his family that things had
improved.
Ms. Palosz said the family had pleaded with school officials to intervene.
“We’re so upset right now with everything because we have been asking
the school system for help,” she said. “Every time there is an incident,
there is a meeting and nothing is done afterwards.” She cited four
occasions when her parents met with school officials to discuss the
bullying, but it continued.
“We asked for help over and over,” she said. “The school said they would do something but they never did.”
William S. McKersie, the superintendent of Greenwich’s public schools,
said on Thursday that school officials were aware of the bullying Bart
had endured, but declined to comment on specific incidents or school
responses because the district was still reviewing its files.
But he said officials were unaware of Bart’s posts about suicide on
social media. While they sometimes monitor students’ posts, they had
missed these.
Another school district employee, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because she who was not authorized to speak publicly on the
matter, said Bart had met with a guidance counselor 10 or 12 times in
the last school year, but that he had told her things were fine.
Connecticut law
requires schools to have a “safe-school climate specialist to
investigate or supervise the investigation of all reports of bullying,”
and to notify the police if the school “believes that any acts of
bullying constitute criminal conduct.”
In recent decades, 49 states and the District of Columbia have passed
anti-bullying laws — all but Montana. But studies of their effectiveness
have produced mixed results, especially at the high school level.
The Greenwich Police Department did not return phone calls seeking comment.
At a funeral service for Bart at the Holy Name of Jesus Church in
Stamford, Conn., on Friday, neighbors, classmates, fellow Boy Scouts and
school officials mourned the young man. Football players arrived in
uniform. Nearly every pew was filled, with people standing in the back.
A family friend, Brian Raabe, 47, gave a eulogy urging the community to take responsibility:
“His death can only have meaning if the bullying and indifference that
led to his feelings of isolation and despair are confronted,” he said.
“The simple observation that kids can be cruel is not action,” he added,
“it is an excuse, an inequitable pardon for those whose actions led to
us being here today and an excuse for not teaching our children well.”
Experts caution that suicide is a complex act, committed for reasons known only to those who commit it.
Bart left a trail of suicidal musings on his Google Plus page. On June
7, he described an apparent attempt to kill himself. “Goodbye forever my
good friends, goodbye, I regret nothing,” he wrote. “I have chosen to
go with 3 peoples advice and kill myself. I just wish it was faster.”
Later posts that night described drinking lighter fluid but only getting
nauseated and passing out. “I am positive I will not try that method
again,” he concluded.
On July 3, he posted a photograph of himself holding a knife to his eye
and wrote, “Hey if I were to stab my eye out due to school caused
insanity, who would miss me?”
But social media can be a world where posts are read by people in
Arizona but not by those in the next room. Ms. Palosz said she was
surprised to learn of her brother’s posts. When she talked to her
brother on Monday, the day before he took his life, “he seemed fine.”
After the funeral, the family planned to take the body to Poland for burial.
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