10-year-old Ashawnty Davis was on life support for two weeks and died last Wednesday, according to KDVR. The cause of her death: bullying. Parents say her school could have done more to intervene.
“She was just a child of joy and she brought joy to everyone,” her father, Anthony Davis, said. But that joy inside of her changed after getting into a fight at school back in October. According to her mother, Latoshia Harris, Ashawnty had built up the the courage to confront a girl who had been bullying her for some time. The confrontation turned into a fight and as expected, students gathered around to witness the confrontation first-hand, pulling out their smartphones to record for their entertainment. The fight, which took place at Sunrise Elementary, was posted on a popular app amongst young people called, Musical.ly. Once Ashawnty learned of this, she was absolutely distraught.
“She was devastated when she found out it had made it to Musical.ly,” Davis recalled. After it was posted, the bullying only got worse being that it was out for the world to see and re-watch as many times as they pleased.
“My daughter came home two weeks later and hanged herself in the closet,” Harris said.
It is Ashawnty’s parents hope that their daughter’s stories will help save other lives and put an end to bullying for good.
“I just want other parents to know that it’s happening,” Harris said. “That was my baby and I love my baby and I just want other mothers to listen.”
The Cherry Creek School District issues a statement on the case:
“This is a heartbreaking loss for the school community. Mental health supports will be made available for any students who need help processing the loss.
“We do not tolerate bullying of any kind in our schools and we have a comprehensive bullying prevention program in place at all of our schools. The safety and wellbeing of students is our highest priority and we strive every today to ensure schools are safe, welcoming and supportive places that support learning.
“We were made aware of that video when a media outlet approached us with it. We took immediate action in response, turning the video over to police and addressing the matter with students.
“It should also be noted that the video did not take place during school hours.”
Bullying is not always as we see it in movies. With smart phones and social media, it’s become much more easy for children and teens to become victims of bullying but much harder to escape it being that they’re more susceptible to being bullied even while at home. It’s important that as parents, teachers, older siblings etc. we make more of an effort to check in on the young people in our lives. As a society, we often believe that children’s problems are trivial, when they are just as serious to them as a lot of our problems are to us. Bullying has been an issue and one of the main causes of suicide and self-harm for a very long time. More action should be done within school systems and the household across the world to ensure that this problem comes to an end. Our children have so much to live for and we have to do all we can to make sure that they’re able to see it and live it.