Parents of Gabriel Taye, the 8-year-old boy who hanged himself with a necktie back in January 2017 have filed a lawsuit against the Cincinnati Public School district.
The civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit alleges the school did not properly respond to Gabriel being bullied at school and did not inform his parents of a bullying incident in the bathroom of his school that occurred two days before his death as security footage showed Gabriel falling unconscious at school in an incident that may have led to the boy’s suicide.
Cincinnati Public Schools in a statement said, ‘our hearts are broken by the loss of this child, and our thoughts are with his parents and extended family.
He was an outstanding young man, and this is a great loss for his family and our school community’. After his death, a Cincinnati police homicide detective reviewed security video from the boy’s school, Carson Elementary. In an email, the detective told school administrators he noticed an incident in a school bathroom before the boy died.
The detective said he saw “bullying” and behavior that “could even rise to the level of criminal assault”. In May, school officials released the footage to the public after the detective’s email surfaced, but cautioned that the video doesn’t necessarily show bullying.
“It is our firm position that the allegations portrayed in the media are not supported by the video,” the statement says. The lawsuit, however, alleges that Gabriel was knocked unconscious for over seven minutes.
