A 10-year-old Texas boy reportedly took his own life after enduring relentless bullying from his classmates.
KTRK reported that Kevin Reese Jr. died by suicide at his Houston-area home on January 21, after walking home from the bus with his 13-year-old sister. Reese’s mother was out of town and his stepfather was heading home from work when the 10-year-old killed himself.
The boy’s mother, Crystal Smith, recalled getting a hysterical call from her daughter upon finding him unresponsive in his closet.
“She was just screaming on the phone, and I didn’t understand and she screamed, ‘Kevin,'” she said.
Smith described her late son as “goofy” and said he loved to draw and paint. But the grieving mother said Reese revealed he was being bullied at Robinson Elementary School in the months leading up to his suicide.
“I just thought he was handling the situations. They wrote on his tablet to kill yourself, ‘You don’t belong here,'” she told the news station. “When it got physical back in November, he came home crying because he didn’t fight back and one of the boys punched him several times coming from recess.”
Smith claimed she did contact a school official regarding her son’s assault. KTRK acquired a message left on the mother’s voicemail where an official said the male student accused of punching Reese denied there was a “physical fight” but said words were exchanged.
After Reese’s suicide, Smith claimed she contacted the school and they said they never found any evidence of bullying involving her son.
The Cy-Fair Independent School District told KTRK there were “no allegations or evidence of bullying were reported to a school administrator or via the Cy-fair Tipline associated with this student’s death.”
However, the news station reported that they presented the voicemail to a district spokesperson, who admitted that an administrator had communicated with Reese’s mother about the November incident.
“Pay attention to your child, don’t assume that things are handled at the school, stay on top of it until you see something come out on the end,” Smith offered.
“I just want to find the answer, what happened that day, what was going through his mind.”
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
[Featured image: Kevin Reese Jr./Facebook]
