Sammy Teusch was an intelligent, humorous, and affectionate youngster who enjoyed football, robots, and fishing.
He put a lot of effort into his studies, spent time with his family, and got along well with his Florida classmates, but in November 2022, his family moved to Greenfield, central Indiana, and suddenly the boy’s life became a living hell.
Bullying of the newbie was immediately initiated by Weston Elementary students. At Greenfield Intermediate, the violence and taunting persisted.
To no avail, he begged teachers for assistance.
After months of brutality and cruelty, he killed himself in May – his asphyxiated body was found at home by his 13-year-old brother.
Now in a bombshell lawsuit filed by the parents, the extent of the ten-year-old’s unbelievable suffering has been laid bare – with pictures documenting his injuries.
Along with a heartbreaking illustration of how the boy was tormented even after he passed away, the startling document also has a text message from one bully who seems to confess to driving Sammy to suicide.
Sam and Nicci Teusch have accused the school district of failing to act and showing ‘callous indifference’ to Sammy, who endured months of misery despite their desperate pleas for help.
Grieving dad Sam told DailyMail.com the wrongful death suit, filed this week at Hancock County Circuit Court, would make schools safer by ensuring teachers crack down on bullies.
‘Their neglect and lack of ability to accept responsibility for their actions can’t be allowed,’ said Sam.
‘I went to the school 20 times or more about all this.’
Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation refused to comment on the 14-page complaint against the district and its trustees.
It alleges that Sammy was attacked and ridiculed about everything from his ‘beaver’ teeth to his general appearance, which was grotesquely likened to that of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Remarkably, a teacher reportedly joined in on the mockery at one point, claiming that the youngster did look like the Milwaukee maniac.
In one instance, a classmate allegedly choked Sammy until he ‘saw stars’.
Another hit him so hard with an iPad that Sammy was left with a black eye and broken glasses, the filing says.
On another occasion, a gang of students allegedly chased him through the school and trapped him in a bathroom.
Perhaps the most hurtful bullying cited in the lawsuit came from a student who simply followed Sammy around the school, urging him to kill himself.
Sammy complained to teachers but was largely ignored, the complaint alleges.
In an attempt to grab the attention of the staff, he flipped over his desk out of exasperation, however, this resulted in his being reprimanded for disturbing the class.
Sam told DailyMail.com that his boy ‘had the biggest heart along with the best smile’.
‘That made him an easy target and easy for school officials to dismiss and disregard him,’ he said.
‘We can’t let the world be like that.’
When Sammy alerted his parents, Sam and Nicci urged teachers to get involved and protect the boy, the lawsuit says.
Some 20 warnings were filed with GIS principal Bronson Curtis and others but to no avail.
The lawsuit says teachers took a ‘cavalier’ attitude to Sammy’s welfare and blamed the victim, not his bullies.
The filing accused staff of even saying the boy was picked upon due to his own ‘mental problems’.
At one point, the exasperated child told his father: ‘They don’t listen to me, daddy.’
The final straw, it appears, was phone calls from a bully known in court papers as NT.
On Saturday, May 4, the schoolmate allegedly threatened more violence against Sammy once they were back in class the coming Monday.
‘NT never got the opportunity to carry through on his threats,’ says the complaint, as Sammy died by suicide shortly before midday on Sunday, May 5.
Upon finding his lifeless body, Sammy’s grieving parents and paramedics attempted but failed to get his young heart beating again.
Even as the community rallied behind the Teusches and hundreds turned out for the boy’s funeral on May 14, including a commemorative motorbike procession, the taunting persisted.
After reportedly taking pictures of Sammy’s open coffin, one of the bullies, a girl named TN, was observed giggling at her phone.
The lawsuit calls this a ‘blood-curdling moment reminiscent of the movie Children of the Corn’.
NT, the bully accused of prompting Sammy’s suicide, acknowledged in an apologetic text message that it was ‘all my fault for bullying him,’ the documents show.
The Teusches’ lawyer Brian Grossman says school officials are to blame because they ‘for months callously dismissed and disregarded Sammy’s pleas for protection’ and failed to step in.
The family wants damages, a jury trial, and reimbursement for their legal fees.
‘This suit is about more than holding the Greenfield School Corporation accountable,’ says Grossman.
‘It’s about making sure no child ever experiences what Sammy experienced—and no family again experiences the heartbreak the Teusch family can now never escape.’
Days after the fourth-grader’s death, the Greenfield Police Department opened an investigation into the bullying.
They discovered that ‘some bullying’ had plagued Sammy, both in and outside of school, but they ended the investigation on May 31 without bringing charges against anyone.
Deputy police chief Charles McMichael at the time said there was ‘no evidence’ teachers were neglectful.
The school district’s superintendent, Dr. Harold Olin, has contested the Teusches’ claims, saying no report of bullying was ever submitted by Sammy or his parents.
Sammy is just one among some two dozen US children who take their own lives each year after classroom bullying, according to data from the United Educators Association.
According to the US Department of Education, over 25 percent of children experience bullying every day.
Peer pressure and 24/7 social media are contributing to a young mental health crisis that is making those numbers worse.
The Megan Meier Foundation, a Missouri-based nonprofit, says kids who’ve been bullied or cyberbullied are twice as likely to try to end their lives as others.
The Teusches established the non-profit Sammy’s Tree Foundation to assist children who have been bullied in reporting their abusers and discussing issues in the classroom.
‘Our main goal is to let everybody know that right now suicide is the second-leading cause of death in children,’ said Sam.
‘It’s something I didn’t know because they don’t let us talk about it. There’s a stigma: You’re not allowed to even say the word.’
With or without this so-called Bullying Report, I guarantee that most of the grown-ups and students at this child’s grade level knew he was being tormented. This family lost a child due to the negligence of an entire system – all it would have taken is one adult from that school to speak up to protect this boy.
Bullying is out of control, particularly due to the use of social media. Groups form on social media and together they go on a mass frenzy of abuse.
There needs to be consequences, but that will take forever to accomplish. In the meantime, check your child’s phone and talk to your kids. Tell them to block social media posts from the masses, and take measures to help build up your child’s confidence and strength to walk away. It’s not much, but it’s a start in the right direction.
Every area of the school should have cameras, and if there are frequent issues, security personnel should always be on call to intercept, and mobile phones should be banned from schools.
Computers should also be banned from schools because even if they ban mobile phones, youngsters can get onto the computers, so the bullying will continue, and of course, once school has ended these kids are back on their phones where the bullying continues.
After physical punishment was outlawed in both the home and school, bullying began to flourish unchecked.
These kids basically killed this boy indirectly. They weren’t toddlers. They knew that hitting and name-calling someone else was wrong, but now with a carefully cultivated idolisation of children and then we get burned-out families and all entitled, evil, arrogant, rebel without a cause children.
Children spend more time in school than with their parents during the day. This is the reason it’s so crucial to be able to pick a school that respects morals and gives the youngster the proper instruction.
Children are supposed to be psychologically safeguarded by teachers as well as being taught by them. They’re expected to have training in child welfare and early detection of warning signals concerning the welfare and emotional health of children while in school.
There are numerous situations where children have ‘problems’ at home and school should be a haven of safety and trust between children and teachers where children are treated impartially, equal to one another, observed and listened to, and if they can’t receive the highest standard of care in a professional teaching environment, then where can they?
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 