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13-Year-Old Suspended For Hacking Commits Suicide
RichM writes: "The Times of Trenton (N.J.) has a story this morning about a gifted local 13-year-old who committed suicide after being suspended for 10 days from school, apparently for hacking into the school's computer system. Accounts differ, but it appears the school emphasized that what the child did was illegal, and he hung himself that afternoon, leaving a note saying he would rather die than go to jail."
This has nothing to do with a jail sentence. Depression amongst our youth is a very serious problem that is regularly ignored by parents and teachers. Knee-jerk accusations of computer games, music, drugs, and (yes) threatened jail sentences obscure the issue. People do not kill themselves because of an outer influence, they kill themselves because they can't handle the pain inside. We should supporting children, teaching them coping mechanisms, working on fixing the cause rather than blaming the symptoms.
When they finally learned that the injuries were done by a local school bully (there were witnesses)... THE SCHOOL ABANDONED ALL INTEREST IN THE STUDENT'S INJURIES!
Someone explain to be why schools are ready to send armed guards (like Elian Gonzales) to sieze battered kids from abusive parents yet have no problem with kids abusing and beating up other students?
Senior Year of high school. I was a honor student who was involved with the Academic Decathalon, a football player, on the track team, the editor of the school's TV news program and founding officer of the Computer Club.
We have two parking lots in our school. One close to the school (got to get there early) and one further away. I ALWAYS park at the close parking lot (because I always got to school early to hang with my friends, play magic and bull shit about computers). However, I went to a Pantera concert the night before, got in later than usual and parked in the far away parking lot.
Well, wouldn't you know it, that was they day they decided to let drug-sniffing dogs scour the parking lot. However, they only did the far away praking lot (I guess they figured drug users don't get to school early). I was called out of class in the morning and asked to report to my car. I had a pretty decent idea of why they might be interested in my car.
I get there and I'm asked to consent to a search and am told that if I don't consent they'll get a search warrant. I consent. I'm asked to unlock the car so a plain-clothes policewoman can search my car. Knowing that I had a bag of weed and a small bong under the driver's seat, I open the passanger-side door. The polie officer searchs the car including under every seat except the driver seat. She finds a stem, two seeds and a mostly burnt paper with resin on it. I am told to wait in the principals office.
I wait outside her office for 4 hours, in plain view of everyone walking by in between classes. Fun, I tell you. I finally get into the office and I am told that they found drugs in my car and that the school is a zero-tolerance school and the evidence will be turned over to the police for prosecution. I was also on indenfinte suspension from that moment. My parents were called and told the same. I was sent home. My parents yelled and screamed at me for a half hour or so and then sent me to my room (or I left, I don't remember). At this time I typed a letter on my Amiga explaining the reasons that it is fucked up that I would every have to go to jail. I said I didn't want to go to jail and it would be better if I were dead. I then swallowed three 30 count bottles of Tylenol PM (painkiller + sleep pill) and a bottle of something else.
I ate dinner with my parents. I had to go to the Senior Musical practice that night. I tried to get out of it but they insisted. I felt pretty drunk by the time I arrived. I fell alseep in the seats of the theatre before practice. Practice had started and at somepoint a teacher woke me up and said I didn't look to good. I said I didn't feel to good and thought I should go home. I remember vomiting outside the school.
I don't remember this part but was filled in on it later. I went to the school parking lot and fell asleep next to a light pole. Someone in my class was driving by, saw and recognized me. he drove up and got me into the car. He knew where I lived (I lived a mile away from the school) or I told him, but he got my home and helped me inside. I went to sleep on the living room couch.
I remember this part. My parents were away but they came back soon after. They asked what I was doing home early from practice. From this point on, I spoke completely in non-sensical sentences. I knew what I was saying didn't make a lick of sense (I was speaking stream-of-conscious annd my conscious was really fucked up) but I was still trying to act "normal." It was a losing battle. My parent's were convinced I was on some "heavy drugs" because I was, after all a "drug user." I had only smoked pot previosuly (ok, ok, I dropped acid a couple times too). I was sent to me room.
All I wanted to do was sleep. My mother came back up to my room and started asking "what did you take?" "Did you take anything at the concert?" She was convinced I had taken something at the concert and was having a flashback or it took a while to hit (24 hours!). To get her to shut up so I could get back to sleep, I told her that I took all of those pills (pointing to 4 empty bottles of pills).
That was a bad idea! She made me get up and go to the hospital! It was totally crowded, but she just went to the reg desk and slapped down 4 empty bottles of pills and said "he took those." I was brought back immediately.
I started vomiting everywhere, including all over a nurse (sorry!). They made me drink charcoal and pushed a tube up my nose and gave me IV. Since, by this time, it had been proably 3 or 4 hours since I took the pills, I ingested alot of it and there wasn't a whole lot they could except to put hook me up to all the monitors (critical condition!) They told my parents that there is a good chance I would die.
Well, luckily I didn't. I was released the next day. My kidneys went into shock and I had to take some medication for that.
So, I had a meeting with the principal and some pyschs the next Tuesday. I think they found out about the suicide on Monday. When I came in, I was now told that I would not be suspended or expelled, the police would not be involved and I would have to do is go to forced Psych sessions and "group therapy."
The only thing good about the Psych sessions was the Psych liked to play Civilization, so we spent the whole time exchanging stratagies. Group Therapy was weird. Those were people who did some hardcore shit.
Everyone except for one girl and one guy who they found an oz+ of weed had no disciplanory action taken against them. Too this day, I'm convinced it's because of my attempted suicide. I guess they didn't want one of their best students to have killed themselves over a few branches and seeds found in their car.
In the end, the suicide was one of the best things I ever did. I began a 100% turn around on my personality. I used to be a depressed and loathsome individual. I did alot of soul-searching and becamse much happier and certainly no longer suicidal. I finished highschool, finished college, and now work as an electrical engineer.
What greater good is being fullfilled if I were to have been expelled or gone to jail because I smoked pot? My being caught didn't cause me to stop either. Though I am not currently smoking right now, I smoked on and off all through college (only stopping 3 months before internships for drug tests).
Anyway, same story, different law.
Oh yeah, I had hacked into the dstrict computer shortly after that. But that was only because the Psych's office had the phone number and his username to the district computer in his office. My friend guessed his password, it was money! (Thanks Jim!)
---------------------------
That's not what I meant.
If this is "expungement", it won't apply to me, because at the moment I have multiple felonies. No go.
Maybe those of us with the experiance should offer to do some pro-bono work for those schools (or other non-profit/low-profit orginizations) that could use our expertise?
Lots of other "professional" jobs have this sort of a requirement as part of their membership, or at least encourage it.
I'm not saying that this would solve the problem, but perhaps it could help.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Even if they believe it will lead to the same end?
From the article:
But district Superintendent John Fitzsimons said school officials followed disciplinary policies in this case, and although teachers and administrators are grieving the loss, they aren't responsible.
So, it appears your position is the same as the school superintendent's. While I agree that teachers and officials cannot be held as primarily responsible for this child's death, I do think that they partially responsible. Having a "zero tolerance policy" doesn't absolve people of the consequences of their actions.
Zero tolerance policies exist so that people don't have to excercise judgement. Think of all the questions that zero policy sweeps under the rug:
Excercising this form of judgement is the moral responsiblity of every person who is in a position of power of another.
"Zero tolerance" -- on computer cracking, drugs or whatever other issue -- is the preferred policy of people who don't want to think about an issue or who are uncomfortable with the messy world of real people with real problems. It's no wonder that schools systems take this position on cracking, given their usual lack of comptuer sophistication. It's easier to wish it away under "zero tolerance" than to come to grips with it.
So -- to what degree are the officials and teachers responsible? There are degerees of culpability. They are certainly not as responsible as if they handed a loaded gun to a suicidal teenager. But if indeed the policy in indeed "zero tolerance", then the policy setters will have mandated that the people who ought to have known Shinjan best, the circumstances of his infraction, his potential reaction and the dangers involved, these people are not allowed the time or scope to use their judgement to find an appropriate form of discipline. Depending on the policy, they might not have had the leeway to mitigate the results of their actions, say by bringing the parents in for a conference first -- even though by bringing the parents in they would have been able to enlist them in changing his future behavior. The only reason I can think of for sending a child of this age home without this kind of consideration is if he presented an immediate danger to other people.
For what earthly reason would a policy exists that ties the hands of people know know the particiants and situation best and prevent them from taking the most effective action at their disposal? There's only one reason ever for "zero tolerance" policies: because it is administratively easier for the policy setters.
Therefore I believe the policy setters bear a grave moral responsibility in this matter, one which would well justify their resignation or removal. The people who enforced this policy may or may not bear some responsibility -- it depends on the circumstances. If they routinely mitigate the official policy with their personal judgement, and in this case it simply went awry -- well nobody's judgement is perfect and I feel sorry for them. If they slavishly followed a bad and immoral policy because it was easier for them, then they are responsible too.
I know this sounds harsh, especially since I am advocating a humane attitude towards people who have done wrong. But, I think that you can advocate humane and just treatment of offenders without erasing all personal responsibility. It's the people who can't conceive of a middle ground where there is both justice and mercy that advocate either zero tolerance on one hand or absolving people because they feel bad on the other.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
At the risk of appearing Troll-like, one has to ask -
Why don't they fix they damn holes before they kill another kid?!?
I mean, seriously. How incompetent are the IT losers working at the school district that they've been hacked several times? Why don't they take a more progressive approach like - gosh, I dunno - making the punishment a 2000 word report on exactly how you broke in and suggestions on how to fix the hole?
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Firstly, condolences to this child's family, friends, teachers and schoolmates - this would be hard to deal with, no matter what relationship you had with this boy.
I can see the school getting the blame from some people for this - which is a bit unfair. What this kid did do was evidently illegal - stressing the point I would say was done more to emphasise that he shouldn't do similar things again, than to push him into the kind of depression that leads to suicide. Being so smart as to know what he was doing, one must wonder how he didn't already know it was illegal, or at least morally and ethically wrong, and really, being 13 is no excuse - if he's smart enough to hack into the school district's systems, then he should know the ramifications of being caught, and the likelyhood of it happening.
It does appear that the suspension was the limit of the punishment that the school intended on carrying out on the boy - the real trajedy here (apart from the death) is that the boy appears not to have been clear on this himself. It is important, *especially* so with children, to be very clear when indicating the future direction of actions to be taken in response to someone's actions - the boy, from his suicide note, felt that he was going to be sent to prison - when the worst he appeared to be destined for was a negative mark on his school record - this obviously wasn't made clear to him, and his suicide was the result.
A very sad day when someone, gifted as this boy was or not, commits suicide, especially when it's at least partially due to a lack of understanding about the situation.
Aside: Way back when, my high school had the highest aggregate SAT scores for any public school in NJ, to a large degree because it was in Murray Hill, NJ, home of AT&T Bell Labs (now Lucent). About half of the kids in town were raised by parents who were professional scientists and engineers.
And perhaps unsurprisingly, our little town of 13,000 also had the highest teen suicide rate in the nation. For a couple of years, the valedictorian of the graduating high school class never actually made it to graduation.
A 13-year-old is still just 13, no matter how good he is with computers; the school should have treated him as a 'special needs' student who had done something wrong, not as an independent and emotionally mature adult, or as a criminal.
-Mark, hoping the next kid makes it through OK
Well if it was a major break in, which is criminal, then 10 days is justified. You have to understand that this is the real world, and things like this are taken seriously.
It might be easy to blame the suspension, but the kid almost certainly had emotional problems, and the suspension is not to blame at all.
this should not even be on slashdot, it is very sad, but nothing to do with technology, and it happens every day.
Some of you people have got to be kidding me. When I was in the sixth grade, I screwed around with my middle school's network. (If anyone reading this goes to Half Hollow Hills middle school, I'd love to hear from you!) You know what they did? Why, they suspended me. And guess what? I deserved it. You can say whatever you like, but the way that the administration is going to see it is that you're screwing around on a network that contains very important data. Being told be the kid that he knows what he's doing is bullshit to them. What if he had screwed up and fubared the all the grading data or the attendence records? Suspension isn't an excessive punishment for potentially endangering all the data on the school's/county's/state's network. Very real damage could be done.
As far as suicide, that's bullshit. No one kills themself over a suspension. Find a therapist or a psychologist or a counselor. Ask them if they think even a chronic over-achiever with strict parents would do something like that over a suspension. In fact, I'd like to know why the journalist didn't. People who end their lives invariably have a history of emotional instability. And believe me, that can be hidden from the most intrusive of parents easily.
So, in conclusion, this article is bullshit. An unstable kid did something stupid, got punished for it, and that along with whatever else he was dealing with was just a little too much. Maybe a week from now those parents will find the kid's journal or one of his friends will come forward and tell them about what his feelings were *really* like.
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Ignore your rights and they go away.
"He said if (Shinjan) was an adult, hacking into the computer system could be a crime."
I found that line pretty disturbing. Just about anything a kid that age does in middle school is a crime when done by an adult. Bullying in middle school is ignored, but if an adult had done the same actions it would translate to a mugging or assault. But schools typically look the other way regarding this kind of terrorizing. So suspending the kid for 10 days just because 'it would have been a crime if he were an adult' seems a bit extreme.
I suspect it had more to do with the 'loner hacking on a computer' scare that's going around these days. It seems like perhaps the punishment didn't fit the crime. Expecially because the youth was so scared that he killed himself afterwards.
My sympathies to his family and friends.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I have no idea if you really know the situation are not, but if it is true that he hacked into the school's grade system, changed his grades, and sold access, then he definitely deserves to be punished to the absolute fullest extent. That definitely deserves suspension, or even expulsion. Not only is it theft and burgluray, but it's an insult to academic integrity.
From the article, and from the rest of the comments, people made it out to be something minor like reading teacher's e-mail or crashing the network. But changing grades is an extremely serious offence. He seriously got off very easy if all he got was a 10 day suspension (his own self-imposed punishment notwithstanding).
I'd have to disagree here. If he were an adult, you would certainly have a valid point, but 13 year old kids do not necessarily think like adults. They tend to make rash decisions without fully comprehending all of the possible ramifications. In this case, I believe that he may indeed have been an otherwise 'normal' well adjusted teen who was simply overwhelmed by the apparent possibility of incarceration. Of course, it's also possible that he was on the brink of disaster, but definitely far from a certainty. I guess what I'm saying is that, by adult standards, nearly all 13 year olds have some psychological problems. We really shouldn't lose sight of what a volatile time it is in a person's life.
Let's face it. Good kids are going to screw up. What these zero-tolerance policies do is to remove from the authorities any power, responsibility, or incentive to distinguish between the hopeless, incorrigible fuck-up and the kid who stumbles.
The kid committed suicide because he didn't want to go to jail. Does anyone doubt that there are school districts where he would have gone? I don't; not in the least. It's probably part of some district's "zero-tolerance" policy that was oh-so-popular with the voters, and it's still popular until some poor kid gets in trouble and kills themselves -- and even then, not a single person stops to think, "Gee, hey, maybe sometimes tolerance is a good thing."
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
I live in this school district. I was suspended last year for a similar attack (I got Admin access but I didn't do anything with it, then I moved onto running linux and OBSD and found myself here). I was also threatened with jail time. It was a very empty threat.
The district web site has a little blurb about it which I think is very out of place.
I have heard various things about what he did. From what I can piece together: He was getting Cs and Ds. He cracked into the school grade system (called SASI), changed his grades, and changed some of his friends grades. He may have sold access.
The main other thing that I have learned was that the principal of the school was really shaken and broke down in front of the school.
If anyone wants any questions anwsers reply and I will do my best.
In a whole school assembly he began to talk about what happened and how the students should respond, what they should do if they see this happening to anyone else...
At some point he just could take anymore and just broke down. For a principal in our district he is rather young and he didn't know what to do.
The entire administration believes that they had nothing to do with this. He showed his head because he believe that he was 100% right in doing what he did. Apparently his conscience got the best of him.
Not that I believe that they did do that much wrong, but anytime a child resorts to killing himself, something went wrong.
(thoughtfully worded snailmail probably best)
Grover Middle School
10 Southfield Road
Princeton, NJ 08550
Principal: Steven Mayer
But if you are in a rush, School Board email addresses and other info can be found here.
http://www.wwptoday.com/schools/schools.html
The district main website is at:
http://www.ww-p.org/
they have a blurb about handling trauma, but noting about the suicide itself
Please be careful to tread the original story, and cite the link as a source when you send email.
Mind you also that some of the teachers may well be innocent bystanders, and already upset enough as it is.
Be thoughtful and concerned in your reply, even if it is intensely emotional.
The problem is a system, that, under thew appearance of help, tends to do those things that destroy, even if benign neglect. "We didn't see it coming" they say, but they are supposed to be the professionals. They are supposed to know.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
About 1 month before 8th grad ended for me in 1996, I was called into the vice-principal's office for a talk. I was being accused of stealing property from the library, violating the grading system, and crashing 3 school email networks.
In reality, what I had done was sent a really really large email (~50MB) through the system. Because everything was going haywire, they expected the worst.
My parents were called at work and told that I had broken some "serious school rules." There was no due process. There was no search for understanding. There was no compassion. I was suspended in school for 5 days. I had to sit in a sterile classroom and read/copy from books onto paper. I couldn't interact with any of my peers as they walked past the classroom. I felt like I was going to die.
The school administrators that deal with disciplinary problems deal with guns, drugs, and lewd conduct all day. They treat the computer people, generally meeker and milder and more intelligent, the same as everyone else.
This is the fundamental problem: children with a high propensity for computer use aren't your regular disciplinary problem kids. We're usually over active and very curious.
This is a very hard thing to get a grip on. But the question remains, how are schools supposed to deal with computer kids? Mere understanding doesn't do the trick. "Refocusing creative energy" sounds like an administrative cop-out.
Currently, I'm attending a school with an honor code. The administration believes students when they say something. However, I don't believe this would work in middle school. What is the solution?
No flame here. No throwing the blame on society. No repetetious praising of how talented the kid was, how much potential he had. Just a virtual moment of silence for a poor kid.
May this never happen again.
Well, it's been a long time since I've been in school, so I can't say what's a "reasonable" policy for computer hacking these days.
I did break into the school computer when I was in high school ... they caught me about six weeks till the end of the semester. My "punishment" was getting kicked out of my computer class, which ultimately meant being short credits for completion. My alternative was to pay for access to a computer at the local community college and finish my assignments there, which I did.
At the same time, I can tell you I felt really, really empty inside. If there was *one* thing I was good at, it was computers. To have that taken away from me, and to become an outcast even in that realm was pretty disorienting ... perhaps even crushing. At the same time, I suppose they could have been a lot meaner.
Now, this kid was apparently a rising star in a number of other activities, and I'm not sure why he wouldn't have simply funnelled his efforts toward another hobby for a little bit, and come back to computers a bit later.
I'm really saddened that such a bright youngster decided to take his life over what appears to be a minor infraction. I can honestly say I don't begrudge the school district one bit. I think the initial sting of punishment is probably a good thing, so long as it is followed up with guidance.
About a month ago I saw a Biography on Steve Wozniak.
They talked about hacking he did in high school. One time he broke into the schools computer and changed all the times the bells rang.
Another time he left a box which had a ticking sound in it. The principal ended up rushing the thing into the middle of the football field thinking it was a bomb. The person saying this was laughing about it
If he did this stuff today how many YEARS of prison would he get?
This is not a flame, but an encouragement for everyone to look at things from a different angle.
This was a kid who was heavily obsessed with "making the grade." Judging by the fact that he had Hindu parents, who are known for their demanding nature, and by his father's statement that "I worked so hard to bring up good children in a good school district", it seems clear that this child was mercilessly pushed by his parents to succeed at any cost.
As someone else on the board mentioned, he was receiving C's and D's. He probably feared that his parents would regard him as a failure, and that he wouldn't be able to measure up to his brother. He took his own life because, as yet another person mentioned, he had a "screwed value system." He believed that reputation and skill were more important than life itself.
Can we really blame the school administrators in this affair? They did what they should have done - they punished a student who had commited what most people would consider a serious crime. His parents, on the other hand, did not do what they should have done. They pushed him harder and harder to succeed, until all they had left was a body in the cemetary and a box of ribbons.