AMANDA TODD'S NIGHTMARE
Bullying Tragedy:
Amanda Todd's
Nightmare
Photo Source: abcnews.go.com
CELEBRATING OVER
By BRANDON BAUR (@brandonbaur) and
REENA NINAN (@reenaninan)
Oct. 24, 2012
It’s a cry for help that’s now been seen
more than 17 million times -- Amanda Todd,
15, sharing her painful story with the world
via YouTube.
“We are
proudly
supporting
Drug Free
Communities”
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“Cried every night, lost all my friends and
respect,” reads one placard Todd holds up in
the video. “I felt like a joke in this world I
thought nobody deserves this,” reads another.
Todd, 15, posted the video called “My
story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm”
on Sept. 7 and was found dead in her home
town of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia on
Oct. 10.
Todd’s small community held a candlelight
vigil in her honor this past weekend.
“You wouldn’t know that she had any problems,” one fellow student said through tears.
“She was just so happy, like all the time,
never sad, like you couldn’t tell.”
| Illinois Spring/Summer 2014 | abusemagazine.org
Todd’s death hasn’t stopped her from being
the victim of online harassment. Some have
been attempting to profit from the enormous
public outcry in support for her by setting up
fraudulent websites that claim to be fundraising for the girl’s family.
“Taking advantage of a family’s grief is
despicable,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Sgt. Peter Thiessen said in a statement. “We
want to get the word out that there is one
real account and anyone who is interested
can make a donation at any RBC branch to the
Amanda Todd Trust Account.”
Dozens of tribute pages for the teen have
been created on Facebook. The most popular one has over one million supporters and
several others have hundreds of thousands of
supporters.
Authorities are “sifting through thousands
of tips” they have received since Todd’s death.
Police have opened a probe into Todd’s
death and “anyone that had contact with her”
before she died. Of particular interest is a
Source: abcnews.go.com