Police say they have set up an email account to gather tips after Port Coquitlam teen Amanda Todd who was subjected to relentless bullying apparently took her own life.
An official with the coroner’s office has confirmed preliminary indications suggest 15-year-old Todd committed suicide on Wednesday, just a month after posting a video on YouTube describing cyber and physical bullying. Investigators know how she died, but will not release that information.
The RCMP have confirmed that a full investigation has been launched into the circumstances that led to her death.
The RCMP say serious-crime teams are now working together on the case, conducting interviews and reviewing contributing factors to Todd’s death.
They say anybody with information can email amandaTODDinfo@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
Meanwhile, Todd’s mother told the Vancouver Sun she wants her daughter’s anti-cyber-bullying video to be used to help other young people.
“I think the video should be shared and used as an anti-bullying tool. That is what my daughter would have wanted,” Carol Todd said in a message via Twitter.
Amanda Todd posted a video on Sept. 7, entitled “My Story: Struggling, bullying, suicide and self harm,” in which she doesn’t speak but holds up a series of white pieces of paper with short messages in black marker.
On the papers, the teen explains that as a Grade 7 student, she was lured by an unidentified male to expose her breasts via webcam.
One year later, Todd said she got a message from him on Facebook, though she didn’t know how he knew her name or where to find her.
Todd’s notes said the man ordered her to “put on a show for me,” or he would send around the webcam pictures. Todd said he knew her address, her school, her friends and her family.
She said she was later alerted by police that he had followed through with the threat.
“I then got really sick,” she wrote.
She noted she was plunged into anxiety, major depression, drugs and alcohol. But the bullying didn’t stop. She said the man created a Facebook page with a list of her friends and school.
“My boobs were his profile picture,” she wrote.
“I can never get that photo back. It’s out there forever.”
One year later, Todd said she got a message from him on Facebook, though she didn’t know how he knew her name or where to find her.
Todd’s notes said the man ordered her to “put on a show for me,” or he would send around the webcam pictures. Todd said he knew her address, her school, her friends and her family.
She said she was later alerted by police that he had followed through with the threat.
“I then got really sick,” she wrote.
She noted she was plunged into anxiety, major depression, drugs and alcohol. But the bullying didn’t stop. She said the man created a Facebook page with a list of her friends and school.
“My boobs were his profile picture,” she wrote.
“I can never get that photo back. It’s out there forever.”
The Amanda Michelle Todd memorial Facebook page, created Wednesday morning, had more than 11,000 people “liking it” by early evening. Hundreds of people were also posting comments on the site.
“My thoughts and prayers go to her family, I cannot even begin to imagine what they are going through. High school is supposed to be the best time of your life, not one where you fear for yourself every day. No one should have to feel the way she did,” wrote Breanna Lockhart Collins. “She was a beautiful young girl who went way too soon.”
Todd, a former cheerleader with the Vancouver All Stars squad based in Coquitlam, attended school in Maple Ridge from January 2011 to February 2012, when she transferred to Coquitlam Alternate Basic Education (CABE) in Coquitlam.
Students and staff at Todd’s school were grieving her death Thursday.
“It is a very sad case,” said Paul McNaughton, principal of CABE, where Amanda was in Grade 10.
“She was quite connected here. The staff and the students here are very much impacted. She had some very strong ties in the school and to staff in the school.
“I can tell you we feel we tried everything we could to help her when she came to us.”
In a post on its Facebook page, G Force Gym – home of the Vancouver All Stars cheerleaders – wrote:
“Today we feel the loss of our former VAS family member Amanda … I ask that we all watch her video and share her story so that her loss is not in vain. Allow this to be her legacy … Allow us all to look around & find the next Amanda before another precious spunky teenager is lost.”
In her video, Todd says she moved schools in a futile attempt to escape her bullies.
Spokeswomen for the Maple Ridge and Coquitlam school districts would not discuss the case directly, but both said their districts take action when they receive bullying complaints.
Grief counsellors were speaking to students in both districts Thursday.
Todd’s video echoed another similar online story entitled “My Story: Suicide and Bullying”, which had been uploaded by Mollydoyle18 on YouTube. Commenting on Amanda’s video, Molly posted Wednesday:
“Rest in peace and fly high to Amanda Todd. I was just messaging her about almost a week ago, and I just found out that she has taken her life. She was asking me about how to be an inspiration to others and to get her video more views, and now I have found out that she has passed away … This is a terrible tragedy. I wish she could have had her happy ending.
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark posted a short video on YouTube on Thursday sending her sympathies to Amanda’s family.
“I want to say to everyone who loved her, to all her family and friends, how sorry I am about her loss,” Clark – who spearheaded a Pink Shirt Day anti-bullying campaign while she was a radio host – said in the video.
“No one deserves to be bullied. No one earns it. No one asks for it. It isn’t a rite of passage.
“Bullying has to stop.”
However, the founder of a website dedicated to Internet safety says cyber bullying can’t be legislated away.
Merlyn Horton of the Safe Online Outreach Society says adults and their children need to have values-based conversations about the Internet.
Horton says adults must teach children and teens that everything posted online is public and permanent, they shouldn’t talk to strangers about sex, allow people to take sexual images of them or tolerate harassment.
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