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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 64 - November 3, 2009 Gang rape victim's parents release statement...The parents of a 15-year-old girl who was gang-raped on a California high school campus urged the community Saturday to channel its anger over the event "through positive action," according to a pastor. CNN News story here 
At a Saturday community event at the campus where the attack took place, the Reverend Jim Wheeler, who said he was the family's pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Richmond, read a statement from the teenager's parents.
"Stop the violence," Wheeler read. "Please do not respond to this tragic event by promoting hatred or by causing more pain. We've had enough violence already in this place." Police say as many as 10 people were involved in the rape on October 24 in a dimly lit back alley outside Richmond High School, where a homecoming dance was taking place. Another 10 people watched the attack without calling 911, police say. Five people have been arrested in connection with the attack. A sixth person who was arrested is expected to be freed because of insufficient evidence, CNN affiliate KGO reported. For more on this story, see vol7_iss63. The parents' statement urged the community to work to ensure that such an attack never happens again. "If you need to express your outrage, please channel your anger through positive action," they said, according to Wheeler. "Volunteer at a school. Go help a neighbor. Be courageous in speaking the truth and in holding people accountable. Work toward changing the atmosphere in our schools and in this community so that this kind of thing never happens again. "Please do not let this happen again." Fourth Palo Alto teen commits "suicide by train"... Grim news hit this university town in late October just two days before a PTA forum on teenage stress: A fourth Palo Alto teen had died after stepping in front of a commuter train in less than six months. MSNBC News story here 
With hundreds of parents crowding the forum, school Superintendent Kevin Skelly told the anxious gathering that the latest death was "a cruel irony" because city officials were working to prevent another tragedy.
Experts have struggled to understand what generates clusters of teen suicides, a phenomenon that breaks into a community's awareness when they occur in a public place, as they did in Palo Alto. But officials in this San Francisco peninsula city of about 59,000 say they're deploying a wide array of approaches to stop it from growing. Those efforts are moving with greater urgency since the most recent suicide on October 19 that involved a 16-year-old male student at Henry M. Gunn High School. Two other Gunn students, a 17-year-old boy in May and a 17-year-old girl a month later, also took their own lives on the train tracks. A 13-year-old girl died the same way in August, days before she was to become a Gunn freshman. At least one Gunn student, another 17-year-old boy, was prevented from killing himself in June after his mother followed him to the tracks. "There is no single answer. There is not necessarily a cumulative set of answers either," said Greg Hermann, a spokesman for Palo Alto, which convened a task force of psychologists, clergy and others to prepare a response plan. "There are intelligent steps we can be taking." Police patrol the tracks while city officials negotiate with the railroad on a design to make them less accessible. Students are discouraged from erecting shrines at the sites, which might romanticize the deaths, and the media has been asked not to make public those locations. Some of the high school's 1,900 students also have created T-shirts with the message "Talk to Me" and formed pacts not to harm themselves. One student left bracelets made of heart-shaped walnut shells for others in need of cheering up to find. A group posts optimistic notes around campus. For more information on teen suicide, see eGuide/teen suicide. In other news... 
Florida authorities were searching for a baby girl missing on the Panhandle on Monday. Fox News story here Seven-month-old Shannon Lea Dedrick was last seen on at her Chipley home on Saturday. She was described as 2-feet tall and 11 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. Her parents reported her missing from their home at 11:23 a.m. on Saturday. Shannon is believed to have disappeared between 3 a.m. and 11 a.m., according to the Washington County Sheriff's Office. Police were on the scene within minutes of receiving the missing child report. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued the missing child alert Sunday night. About 75 search and rescue personnel as well as K-9 teams and volunteers from local fire departments were working an extensive ground search. Meanwhile, Washington County, Florida Sheriff Bobby Haddock confirmed that there is a "person of interest" in the disappearance. Washington County News story here Haddock said the two adults living at 793C Brown Street have been interviewed but he would go into any specifics about what investigators learned. Haddock also refused to release the names of the adults or release the name of the person of interest. Haddock said the adults had no police records, and declined to say if they had been investigated by the Department of Children and Families.
The 4-year-old California boy who disappeared Friday was drowned and placed in a neighbor's dryer before a search for the child had even begun, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said Monday. Fresno Bee story here Mims said Alex Christopher Mercado was playing outside his Tuft Street home in northwest Mendota on Friday when a 14-year-old neighbor boy brought him into the neighbor's home next door and killed him. Mims would not specify how or where Alex was allegedly drowned in the house. After the killing, the teenager placed the child in the dryer, which was in a closet, Mims said. The teenager, whose name has not been made public, has been arrested in connection with the child's death. Mims declined to say why the child was killed. She said investigators have suspicions about motives, and those suspicions will be spelled out when charges are filed. Mims said investigators will present their case to the Fresno County District Attorney's Office today. She declined to release the results of an autopsy completed Monday.
Two sophomore girls have sued their Indiana school district after they were punished for posting sexually suggestive photos on MySpace during their summer vacation. MSNBC story here The American Civil Liberties Union, in a federal lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the girls, argues that Churubusco High School violated the girls' free speech rights when it banned them from extracurricular activities for a joke that didn't involve the school. They say the district humiliated the girls by requiring them to apologize to an all-male coaches' board and undergo counseling. Some child advocates argue that schools should play a role in monitoring students' behavior, especially when dealing with minors. And the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that students can be disciplined for activities that happen outside of school, so long as the school can prove the activities were disruptive or posed a danger and that it was foreseeable the activities would find their way to campus.
Meanwhile, researchers say a growing number of children are flouting age requirements on sites such as Facebook and MySpace, or using social-networking sites designed just for them. CNN News story here Facebook and MySpace require users to be at least 13. But they have no practical way to verify ages, and many young users pretend to be older when signing up. Some scientists worry that pre-adolescent use of the sites, which some therapists have linked to Internet addiction among adults, could be damaging to children's relationships and brains. But many other experts say there's not any solid research to back that up and that most children seem to use social-media sites in moderation, and in positive ways. For more information on social-networking sites, see eGuide/what you need to know about MySpace. 
Though police have released few details about the alleged killer of a 9-year-old Missouri girl, a grim portrait of the 15-year-old female suspect has begun to emerge based on dark writings on the Internet including a YouTube profile in which "killing people" is listed under the girl's hobbies. ABC News story here Several messages on what is believed to be the suspect's Twitter page, which have now been erased, poetically discuss "addiction," "terrors" and the feeling of being caged and "buried." Another post talks about pain and the author's search for a reason for it. On the girl's YouTube page, a video appears to show the suspect with her brothers purposefully shocking themselves on an electrified fence. Police will only say that the unnamed suspect was an acquaintance of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, whose body was found in a wooded area near Olten's home on October 23 after the suspect led police to it. The 15-year-old has been charged with first-degree murder. "We were able to obtain some physical evidence, and through some analysis of some of the evidence and in all honesty some written evidence, we were able to develop a person of interest," Sheriff White said last month. "Once we reached that person and interviewed them, ultimately, they led us to where we've recovered Elizabeth's body." For more on this story, see vol7_iss62.
British police are appealing for Internet users to spread a new video aimed at people who may have information about missing British child Madeleine McCann. Fox News story here The short film includes new images of how the girl might look now, aged 6, more than two years after she disappeared while on vacation with her family in a resort in Portugal. The appeal was launched Tuesday by the U. K. Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center. Detectives hope the video will "prick the conscience" of someone close to the girl's abductor. Click here to watch the video. The appeal asks people who are involved to "remember it's never too late to do the right thing." Police hope people will spread the film by way of blogs, e-mail and social networking sites. For more on this story, see vol5_iss34, vol5_iss53, vol6_iss23, vol6_iss51, and vol7_iss31.
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