*The mother of a 10-year-old Kentucky boy who took his own life on Saturday after being bullied is speaking out about how she documented her son’s abuse for months and the school did nothing about it.
Tami Charles, who found her son, Seven Bridges, in her Louisville home claims she reported bullying to his school numerous times. Charles and her husband, Donnie Bridges, revealed to WDRB that their son was bullied at Kerrick Elementary School in Louisville, where the fifth-grader was the victim of choking on the school bus, and was called the N-word.
Charles documented the abuse on her Facebook page, as well as reporting it to the school.
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Seven Bridges, a JCPS fifth-grader, took his life Saturday. His parents told WLKY Seven was bullied and JCPS could have—and should have—done more.https://t.co/sL8q1N3CHP pic.twitter.com/EYrwyGsCco
— WLKY (@WLKY) January 22, 2019
“Seven knew the Lord,” Bridges said. “He knew right from wrong. We instilled that in him at a young age. He went to church.”
“He couldn’t fight back,” Charles said of her son’s character. “He didn’t have that in him. All he did was pray for the boy.”
Seven was born with a medical defect and had undergone 26 surgeries. He required use of a colostomy bag, and students allegedly made fun of him for it, the report states.
Charles tells the news outlet that she and her husband had signed Seven up for another school.
“We would talk to him about having new friends and a new start. He just had to get to the end of the year.”
Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) spokeswoman Renee Murphy told WDRB that the district will “launch a full investigation” into complaints made by family and how they were handled.
“We are all devastated by this,” she told the outlet.
“JCPS: You all failed my baby,” Charles said. “We need to talk about this bullying. Talk about this pain. I want people to do that with their children.”
Seven’s family is raising funds to help pay for his funeral.
