Urgent Action Plan To Prevent School Bullying and Prevent Suicides That Are Caused By Bullies Telling Children to Kill Their Selves

We have five examples of bullies in very separate states telling children to kill their self and they did. We must get the National Governor’s Association to make stopping this a top priority on their agenda now!! They have helped solve other nationwide problems by initiating what they call “a coordinated response across all levels of government.”

(Government officials we need to urgently contact are seen in Bullet point 3)

(1) Recently there were two suicides and an attempted suicide at one school in Clarksville Tennessee and they were all related to a child being bullied. Here’s an exact quote from the mother of a student at that school:

“Not a day goes by without another student telling my 13 year old son to kill himself. It is frighteningly a very popular thing heard in the halls there.”

Six days ago the New York Post wrote :

A 10-year-old Texas boy killed himself after he was relentlessly tormented at school by his classmates — who even told the child to “kill yourself”

(I have three more examples of bullies telling children to kill their selves. One parent in Clarksville requests their name be kept confidential but I had them speak to a Commissioner)

I wonder if the students who are telling others they should kill their self are copycatting the young lady from Massachusetts who was sentenced to prison after she convinced her boyfriend to kill himself via text messages. (I removed her name because she was a teen when she did this)

(2) We must look closely at the violent media we're all being exposed to and especially the programming designed for children.

Here are two very stunning excerpts from the articles seen in Exhibit A

KTVU in OAKLAND, Calif wrote – “Two Bay Area families are talking publicly for the first time about their daughters, both of whom committed suicide back in April. They were just 15-years-old and took their own lives just days after watching a controversial show on Netflix called ‘13 Reasons Why’. It's about a young girl in high school who commits suicide. Both families say that the show was a trigger for their daughters. It is very graphic, especially the two-minute scene where she slits her wrists in a bathtub.”

Here are quotes from a study conducted by academics at Iowa State University and published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology :

“The effects of televised physical aggression were extensive, such that exposure to televised physical aggression was associated with a variety of negative behaviors. This anti-social behavior included verbal and physical aggression and excluding others from friendship groups.” 

“Children copied at school the verbal aggression they had seen on TV.”

"Researchers found that output aimed at children as young as seven had the highest levels of violence. They recorded 26 acts of aggression an hour compared with just five in shows aimed at general audiences.”

That’s what is occurring right now. Detrimental programming has targeted children for decades.

Please remember in 1961 President Eisenhower said “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." (end of quote)

Seven years later I was fifteen when the number two song in the nation repeatedly told me I was “Born to be Wild”. Rick Derringer told us “Getting high all the time hope you all are too” and Peter Fonda was taking LSD in the movie Easy Rider.

I have family and many friends who died or had their lives destroyed because of drugs and alcohol. Now we have country music that flagrantly promotes alcohol and fighting and other types of music and video games that promote many bad behaviors.

Another stunning fact is an Associated Press article written several years ago said that 100 percent of the people who were on the official board that recommended who should take antidepressants profited from the sales of antidepressants.

There should be mandatory reporting of medications taken by children and adults who commit suicide and homicide. 

I can provide many examples of quotes from the DOJ that prove pharmaceutical companies endangered lives by committing felonies as they bribed doctors to prescribe medications for uses that were not approved. They paid huge fines but none of them were prosecuted

(Stunning articles that contain the quotes seen earlier are posted in the Exhibits seen after this contact info)

(3) Government officials to contact

This summary originates in Tennessee and we need everyone here and around the nation to contact our new Governor Bill Lee and in the subject line ask him to ask him to “Stop Bullying and Suicide Caused By Bullying”

(In a minute I’ll tell you why it’s so important that we all use the same subject in our emails)

Governor Lee’s email address is bill.lee@tn.gov

If you live in another State please have as many people as possible also contact your Governor and elected officials, but we need you to contact Governor Lee too. We will be spending money to advertise this as far and wide as we can. You can cut and paste important parts of this summary in emails you create. 

There is more very urgent content below so please skip this if you do not live in Montgomery County :

Persons to contact here are our County Commissioners at district1@mcgtn.net; district2@mcgtn.net; district3@mcgtn.net; district4@mcgtn.net; district5@mcgtn.net; district6@mcgtn.net; district7@mcgtn.net; district8@mcgtn.net; district9@mcgtn.net; district10@mcgtn.net; district11@mcgtn.net; district12@mcgtn.net; district13@mcgtn.net; district14@mcgtn.net; district15@mcgtn.net; district16@mcgtn.net; district17@mcgtn.net; district18@mcgtn.net; district19@mcgtn.net; district20@mcgtn.net; district21@mcgtn.net: mayordurrett@mcgtn.net

I have a Semicolon between those email addresses because that is what Outlook requires for group emails . You may need to change that.

You can also contact Mayor Pitts and our Councilmen at :

joe.pitts@cityofclarksville.com
ward1@cityofclarksville.com
ward2@cityofclarksville.com
ward3@cityofclarksville.com
ward4@cityofclarksville.com
ward5@cityofclarksville.com
ward6@cityofclarksville.com
ward7@cityofclarksville.com
ward8@cityofclarksville.com
ward9@cityofclarksville.com
ward10@cityofclarksville.com
ward11@cityofclarksville.com
ward12@cityofclarksville.com

The stunning Exhibits are seen after the following paragraph and bullet point (4)

We are very blessed to have three County Commissioners who are very active on the Facebook page Tennessee Against Bullying. In alphabetical order they are Joshua Beal, Jason Knight, and Tangi Smith.

The page was created by Administrator Melissa Marquais who puts her heart and soul into trying to prevent bullying.

This action plan would not have been possible without all the information and discussion shared by those just mentioned and all the very loving and caring members of that page.

Joshua and Jason are live streaming meetings about bullying and suicide prevention and Tangi will appear on a TV show about bullying next month. Right now we have excellent discussions occurring. It’s time to ask and if necessary demand that our top elected officials take action.

(4) Urgent – Here is why it’s so important for large groups to use the same subject line in our request.

Mayor Joe Pitts said “There is power in the tide of public opinion”

It’s time to call for action as a group and get everyone we can to help.

It won’t be easy because one of the very top priorities on the agenda of many legislators is focused on helping big businesses increase profits. This is proven in these quotes from a Tennessean Newspaper article they shared from USA Today :

“Each year, state lawmakers across the U.S. introduce thousands of bills dreamed up and written by corporations, industry groups and think tanks.

Disguised as the work of lawmakers, these so-called “model” bills get copied in one state Capitol after another, quietly advancing the agenda of the people who write them. 

A two-year investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic  and the Center for Public Integrity reveals for the first time the extent to which special interests have infiltrated state legislatures using model legislation.

USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law.” (end of quotes) 

Here’s two more reasons I believe we have to speak up very loudly to get action.

(If not interested please skip to the Conclusion and exhibits) 

Reason 1 - In 2006 while I was having cancer surgeries I filed a complaint that led to the indictment and conviction of a State Senator. He illegally received over $800,000 from Tenncare while over 300,000 people were about to lose benefits due to lack of funding.

During this time I learned in Tennessee the lobbyists have lobbyists, and the lobbyists for the lobbyists have a lobbyist. I saw the lobbyists whisper in our legislator’s ears, they wine and dine them and give them huge contributions.

I believe we have to speak up very loudly to get the necessary action to stop bullying and suicides caused by bullying !!!!

Reason 2 - Proof Governor Lee does not read the emails he signs. One was signed by Bill Haslam –

(If not interested please skip to the Conclusion and exhibits) 

I had a large group of people ask Governor Lee to take action on my action plan with quotes from animal shelter directors about the heart breaking overcapacity shelters with high euthanasia rates. Some rescuers commit suicide because of the suffering they see. (That summary is linked at my Facebook page Save Millions of Lives.)

Governor Lee’s email to me said “Listening to and learning from Tennesseans is very important.”

I asked a friend of mine to send me his response to her. It was signed Bill Haslam who is our previous Governor. I feel certain this means the same person who responded to Governor Haslam’s emails is now responding to Governor Lee’s emails.

That’s fine with me but I strongly believe that they should put their name and title. I was very encouraged when I received the email from Governor Lee. I even told our Commissioners about it when I spoke during a Commission meeting. He signed the email “Warmest regards, Bill Lee.”

I feel that should not be done unless he wrote the email.

(The Exhibits are seen below this Conclusion)

Conclusion

The U.S. has 57 times more school shootings than all the other G7 nations combined. More than 3,000 students attempt suicide every day in the United States. Combine that with all the stunning evidence of bullying and all the other problems we have and I feel certain this is all explained when the Bible tells us our problems will increase exponentially as we get closer to the time when Jesus returns.

Almost all of our elected officials profess their belief in God when they run for office and when they are elected. They are juggling many urgent issues while having businesses constantly trying to influence legislation. Because of this we must be very vocal and determined to do everything possible to contact them as often as possible regarding this and any other urgent issues that need action.

If they don’t take action quickly enough we need to remind them that Isaiah 1:17 says “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”

Since the media that’s distributing all the harmful programming also often bashes Christians, and evolution is being taught as fact, I believe there should also be lessons in school regarding how the complexity of life proves God exists. I have provided examples in a short booklet I wrote that’s seen at www.proofgodexists.net

We need believers and non believers to work together on this. I hope and pray that non believers will understand that some of us are in a place in our life where we need God to be our foundation and we try to make God the focus of everything we do. Please know that we try to do this without judging others because we sin and make mistakes everyday, and most importantly the Bible tells us to not judge others while we are seeking justice and helping the oppressed. I admit that’s not always easy to do.

There is much more I can add regarding lessons for empathy for people and animals and all living beings that we need to include in required school lessons. I’ll close for now because I’m dyslexic from internal eye cancer and want to finish this because every day that passes there are more children at risk from bullying and suicide.

I hope and pray that everyone who is reading this will do everything possible to help stop this including contacting the elected officials mentioned above. Thank you and God bless you.

(Later today I will post everything you’ve just seen at www.christianactionteam.com and it will also be posted on the Facebook page titled Christian Action Team) It should be easier to read there because the font will be bigger.

Sincerely,

Barry Schmittou

Exhibit A - Cartoon Violence Makes Chidren More Aggressive

By Laura Clark for The Dailymail

High levels of violence in cartoons such as Scooby-Doo can make children more aggressive, researchers claimed yesterday.

They found that animated shows aimed at youngsters often have more brutality than programmes broadcast for general audiences.

And they said children copied and identified with fantasy characters just as much as they would with screen actors.

The study also found that youngsters tended to mimic the negative behaviour they saw on TV such as rumour-spreading, gossiping and eye-rolling.

The U.S. psychologists quizzed 95 girls aged ten and 11 about their favourite TV shows, rating them for violent content and verbal and indirect aggression.

The shows included Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Idol, Scooby-Doo and Pokemon.

The researchers found that output aimed at children as young as seven, which included a number of cartoons, had the highest levels of violence.

They recorded 26 acts of aggression an hour compared with just five in shows aimed at general audiences and nine in programmes deemed unsuitable for under-14s.

'Results indicated that there are higher levels of physical aggression in children's programmes than in programmes for general audiences,' the study said.

It added that the TV industry distinguished between animated violence and non-animated violence and appeared to rate the former as less harmful.

There is ample evidence that animated, sanitised and fantasy violence has an effect
on children,' the study's authors said.

Research on the effects of violent video games, which are all animated, indicates that they have the same effects on children's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviours that violent TV shows have demonstrated.

'In fact, even cartoonish children's games increase aggression. Labelling certain types of media violence as "fantasy" violence is misleading and may actually serve to increase children's access to harmful violent content by reducing parental concern.'

The study, by academics at Iowa State University and published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, also found that children copied at school the verbal aggression they had seen on TV.

It said: 'In addition, the effects of televised physical aggression were extensive, such that exposure to televised physical aggression was associated with a variety of negative behaviours in girls.'

This anti-social behaviour included verbal and physical aggression and excluding others from friendship groups.

Co-author Jennifer Linder said: 'There is ample evidence that physical aggression on TV is associated with increases in aggressive behaviour, but there was little until this study that has shown a link between televised aggression and resulting aggression among children.'

Professor Douglas Gentile, who led the study, said content ratings on TV programmes should provide detailed information on the aggression shown.

The U.S. introduced a ratings system in the mid-1990s but the idea has not been picked up in Britain.

Exhibit B - Two Children Commit Suicide After Watching Netflix show

OAKLAND, Calif. (KTVU) - Two Bay Area families are talking publicly for the first time about their daughters, both of whom committed suicide back in April.

They were just 15-years-old and took their own lives just days after watching a controversial show on Netflix called ‘13 Reasons Why’. It's about a young girl in high school who commits suicide.

Both families say that the show was a trigger for their daughters.

Bella Herndon was just three days away from her 16th birthday.

“My daughter was a hero. She believed in protecting her brothers. She stood up for them,” said her father, John Herndon.

Bella was a sophomore at Livermore Valley Charter Prep School.

She had straight As. Writing was her passion.

She loved English, it was her favorite class. She was going to be a writer.

“All I could see is that she was on her knees bent over, like she was digging in the closet.  I thought she was joking around ‘cause there’s really nothing to find in her closet. So I laughed and said, ‘Hey Bella, what are you doing?’ And then I got closer and she had hung herself. She was so blue,” said her mother Donna.

Bella’s father ended up cutting her down, she was on life support for a week and a half, but doctors finally said there was no hope.

Bella had been battling depression. She’d been bullied since middle school. But in the weeks before, she took her life. She seemed happy.

“She was doing great. We put her in a new school. She had new friends. They were coming over. She was interacting with them it was very positive.

Priscilla Chui was also 15 and was a sophomore at Aragon High School. She lived with her uncle Peter Chui.  

“She was precocious. She's very determined,” he said.  “I just remember her brother running out and screaming, ‘Priscilla hung herself! We took her down, called 911, tried to do what we could…CPR, but it was pretty obvious.  She was cold.” Chiu said.

He showed us the last photo of Priscilla taken when she was in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Priscilla had battled depression and other issues and looking back, Peter says he missed the signs. Her grades were going down and she told him she hated school.

“And I feel like the absolute worst adult because I kept forcing her to go to school,” said Peter.
Priscilla and Bella didn’t know each other.

Bella lived in Livermore, Priscilla in San Mateo.

But both of them committed suicide four days apart right after they watched the Netflix drama ‘13 Reasons Why’.

‘13 Reasons Why’ is based on a book about a young girl in high school who commits suicide and leaves behind 13 cassettes to be given to the people who she says were the reason why she took her life.

“It is very graphic, especially the two-minute scene where she slits her wrists in a bathtub,” said Chui.

Both John Herndon and Peter Chui feel that the show was a trigger for Bella and Priscilla and that the message of the show is that suicide is the only answer.

“I feel it's dangerous for that small percentage of young adults who the show can become a trigger for them and I feel as if the show gives only one alternative for cyber bullying and other teenage issues,” said Chui.

The alternative he was referring to was suicide.

The executive producer of the Netflix show is Selena Gomez. She says the idea was to get people talking about suicide.

We reached out to her but she did not respond. The writer of the show is Brian Yorkey and he is very adamant about defending it.

He’s quoted as saying:

"Many people are accusing the show of glamorizing suicide and I feel very strongly-- that we did the exact opposite. What we did was portray suicide and we portrayed it as very ugly and very damaging."

But John Herndon vehemently disagrees. “There is no word that describes my contempt for the people who did this. You can’t convince me that they were trying to attract attention to the issue of teen suicide by showing a little girl killing herself. There’s nothing positive about that.”

Netflix is very aware of the controversy.

They sent us this statement:

“Our hearts go out to these families during this difficult time.

We have heard from many viewers that 13 Reasons Why has opened up a dialogue among parents, teens, schools and mental health advocates around the difficult topics depicted in the show.

We took extra precautions to alert viewers to the nature of the content and created a global website to help people find local mental health resources.

The show was shot in the Bay Area and it has just been renewed for a second season.  And that makes John Herndon livid.

“Don’t go through with the renewal for the second season of 13 Reasons Why. Stop this. This is wrong. You’re making money off the misery of others.”

Peter Chui agrees. He also has one request for Selena Gomez. 

“I would implore and beg Selena Gomez because she has a huge platform to please reach out to our kids and please tell them there are other options. There are other resources out there. This is not a way out for you,” said Chui.

Priscilla’s room is behind these white doors.

And every night Peter touches them before he goes to bed.

“I can hear her giggling; laughing with her friends and it's quiet, which is the hardest, because I miss her laugh.”

As for John Herndon, he’s only gone into Bella’s room twice since she took her life. He says it’s just too hard to be in there.

“When you go into your daughter’s room what do you think about?” we asked.

“How much I miss her,” he said. “How close she still feels, like she’s still here and that will never leave me. I’ll never be able to hold her hand. But I can still feel the person who she was.

Exhibit C – This is the final Exhibit and may not be of interest to some of you. You’ll see a connection to empathy lessons helping children and helping animal welfare. Part of the focus of the speech content seen below was about helping improve conditions at animal shelters and prevent rescuers from experiencing depression and suicide

An idea that I presented to the Commission and the Director of Schools and published in the Save Millions summary on August 6, 2018 is very similar to the  idea that the Montgomery County Schools are now going to utilize to help children.

I’m going to put two quotes that prove this so maybe more people will listen to us now !!!!

(1) In my summary I wrote :

We believe lessons that encourage empathy for all living beings can be designed to greatly increase understanding and empathy for animals and also provide improvements in how people treat each other ! Empathy lessons also have the potential of helping solve very serious human problems such as (A) attacks that are causing mass casualties in our schools and (B) preventing bullying !

(2) On February 24th 2019 the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle wrote that “the Clarksville Montgomery County School System decided to institute a new program this school year putting a focus on social emotional learning.” “We realize we've got to do something to help kids who are struggling with emotional needs said Mary Gist director of middle schools for CMCSS. She said the need became apparent when they conducted focus groups finding the topic came up in every group.” (end of quote)

The article began by saying more than 3,000 students attempt suicide every day in the United States and school shootings were at an all-time high in 2018.

During one of my speeches to the Commission I mentioned that the U.S. has 57 times more school shootings than all the other G7 nations combined and I provided quotes that prove there are many more acts of violence in TV programs for 7 years old and up than there are in programs for adults !!!!

In 2018 I did not think to mention helping prevent suicides and that is certainly extremely important. In the 2019 article the school system did not mention including animal welfare and many of us believe that is important too.

Our ideas are very similar and I don’t know if this is a coincidence or if I planted a seed with my summary written in 2018. I do believe this is an additional reason why you should listen to my ideas even though most of you don’t know me. I’ve explained to our Commission about the national teams I’ve managed and wrote their training manuals, and an award I won for my ability to analyze, problem solve and create when I represented Disney. In the summary I explain how hard it is to get people to accept new ideas and much needed changes.

I have no training in management or analyzing or writing, I believe God works in broken flawed people like me. That way everyone knows the good works are coming from God 100 percent and I thank You Lord !!!!

Chapter 4 of my booklet discusses the fact that since mankind created laws that allow us to end the lives of dogs and cats many of us believe we have a huge spiritual responsibility to lower the euthanasia rates and achieve the tremendous improvements in animal welfare we desperately need ! We discuss this spiritual aspect in the last Chapter of this summary so you can skip it if you prefer. We have a beautiful variety of people with different beliefs and non-believers working together to save lives and we need this to continue ! 

I provide quotes from many spiritual beliefs, and because I am a Christian I posted quotes from Governor Haslam regarding his belief that God called him to public service. I provided many quotes from the Bible regarding our responsibility to be good Shepard’s to all of God’s creation, because “not a sparrow falls apart from God’s shoulder” 

Governor Bill Lee also made very profound quotes about being a Christian when he ran for office and he may create a state board that is related to faith. 

Almost every elected official I know mentions God when they seek election. As we conclude Part One here are two very important verses I need to add to the summary and three of the verses that are in the summary already :

"Who teaches more to us than to the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser then the birds of the air?" Job 35:11 NIV

"In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind." Job 12:10 NIV

“It is forbidden, according to the law of the Torah, to inflict pain upon any living creature. On the contrary, it is our duty to relieve the pain of any creature, even if it is ownerless or belongs to a non Jew.” From the Code of Jewish Law

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Mahatma Gandhi

“A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal” Proverbs 12:10 

It would have just taken two minutes for our elected officials to email or call the Governor and ask him to help, but as far as I know no one has done anything. 

The Bible tells us not to judge and it also tells us to seek justice and help the oppressed and the poor. Pastor Mark Batterson talks about sins of commission and sins of omission on his TBN show called Chasing the Lion. 

Only God knows if failing to do more to help animals and their rescuers is a sin. Without judging I will say that I am one of many rescuers who believe it is very wrong if elected officials and community leaders including pastors do not make animal welfare and saving animals and rescuers lives the top priority that it needs to be as evidenced in the Save Millions of Lives summary.

One hurdle we must surpass is the fact that people don’t always welcome change even when it would be very beneficial ! Maddies Fund quoted the following written by Animal Sheltering Magazine :

          “In the animal sheltering world, it’s easy to fall into old and familiar ways of doing things.”

That’s exactly what’s happening now ! The main thing we hear in the media is the decades old simple message “everybody spay and neuter”. We need to create new messaging with great emphasis on the overcapacity patterns that are occurring all over the nation and how we can correct this and make many happy endings ! ! We need to target all age groups with a variety of attention getting messages. One example is using creative characters with upbeat informational videos that will appeal to children and hopefully many adults too!

Including animal welfare in public school lessons and increasing frequency and urgency of public service messages to the public can provide the breakthrough we desperately need to break away from the “old and familiar way of doing things” that Animal Shelter Magazine mentioned !

The “old and familiar way” is no longer sufficient because there is still so much suffering and death even though many people are sacrificing so much to try to help ! Several rescuers told us it’s always been this way ! A nonprofit veterinarian told us what everyone is doing “is never enough” because so many animals need help !

I believe Maddies Fund has fallen into the old and familiar ways of doing things. They often write about there is no need to “reinvent the wheel”. That’s what they told me when I called them about these much needed changes.

Please search google using the words why people don’t like change. They have almost 5 billion articles. 

Dear Lord as I humbly request others to change their ways and make animal welfare a much higher priority please forgive me for my own sins and help me to overcome them. I pray you will continue to bless all the elected officials and citizens who are reading this and cause them to see the truth and give animal welfare the priority that is desperately needed !!!!