Bullying and teen suicide: How do we adjust school climate?

"Or, 'He just took it the wrong way,' " says Mrs. Long. If there was an antibullying program, she notes, "I was not aware of it."

At the beginning of his sophomore year, according to the Longs' lawsuit, Tyler was pushed down a flight of stairs. The suit claims the school took no action to punish the perpetrators or protect Tyler.

The bullying continued, but Tyler was less inclined to tell his parents. He was embarrassed, and he also no longer wanted his parents to try to intervene. "The more you call up there," he told his mother, "the worse it is for me."

But the bullying continued anyway. On. Oct. 15, last year, according to the lawsuit, a student taunted Tyler and chased him around a music class while the teacher was out of the room. The next day, the abuse resumed, and later, a student pushed Tyler's head into a locker. Another student spat in his food and told him to "hang himself." The harassment continued on the bus home that night, even after Tyler moved to the back to avoid his tormenters.

In its answer to the Longs' lawsuit, the Murray County School District denies that Tyler had been "constantly bullied" and takes issue with virtually all of the specific allegations in the complaint. "[N]o 'brutal and systemic pattern of bullying' of Tyler Long occurred," the school system says, reprising language from the Longs' lawsuit.

A police investigation also did not substantiate any of the specific allegations of bullying in Tyler's last days, and the Chatsworth Police Department chose not to file criminal charges.

The conflict sets up the probability that numerous teenagers will find themselves on the witness stand if the case reaches trial. Winston Briggs, the Longs' Atlanta attorney, insists that their testimony will resonate in schools across the country: "There's no question that this case and this issue has national implications and could reach a national audience and should reach a national audience so this type of tragedy is averted by some other family."

• • •

If Tyler had been bullied in mid-­October, his parents say they didn't know it at the time. By then Tyler no longer wanted them to know what was happening. Everyone went to bed as usual that Friday night, Oct. 16. Early the next morning, the cat woke up Mr. Long to be let out. As he always did, he poked his head into the kids' rooms to make sure they were all right. Tyler wasn't in bed. Alarmed, he stepped into the room and saw his son slumped in the closet. He began screaming.

All of Tyler's furniture has been moved out of the room, which is now an office. A large photograph of Tyler in his ROTC uniform looks over his former bedroom.

The room and the house were a sanctuary for Tyler, the place he felt safe and knew he was accepted. As for not having any real friends, Mrs. Long says, it didn't seem to bother him. "He didn't mind being alone. It was OK with him."

But the bullying that he perceived was not. He couldn't bear it, and he couldn't stop it, so he chose what he thought was his only option, she says.

"This," says his mother, "was his way of having peace."

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