A 13-year-old boy commits suicide after claiming the school “did nothing” to stop his bullies and leaves a disturbing message

A 13-year-old boy wrote a heartbreaking letter about the bullying he experienced at school and the lack of help he received before taking his own life.

Daniel Fitzpatrick was a student at Holy Angels Catholic Academy in Brooklyn, New York. The letter he wrote about the troubling experience at the school was shared on Facebook by family friend Scott McGrath.

“Look at Danny’s smile, look closely at his smile and think about how he was hurt, how he cried out for help and how he hid his pain from all the bullying and fighting with other kids that were once his friends.” , McGrath wrote on Facebook with a picture of Daniel and the letter he wrote.

In his letter, Daniel wrote how good his life at school was initially – he had many friends and good grades. He then states that it changed when he moved and returned to school. His friends stopped talking to him, and when someone like Daniel failed sixth grade, he said the boy started bullying him.

“Anthony took it out on me,” Daniel wrote. “He bullied me along with John, Marco, Jose and Jack, they did it constantly until I got into a fight with Anthony, everyone stopped except John, he was angry. I ended up getting X-rays for my little finger from John. I ended up fighting John and I got a broken little finger.”

Daniel noticed that John got in a lot of trouble for the fight, but he didn’t. Despite this, the bullying continued.
“I’ve given up,” he wrote. “The teachers either did NOTHING!”

Even the principal of the school didn’t help Daniel, according to the New York Daily News.
“I wanted out, I begged and I pleaded that I finally did it… I failed but I didn’t care that I was out, that’s all that’s wanted,” Daniel concluded.

Daniel’s parents said he wrote the letter in early July so someone would be held accountable. He was scheduled to open a new school in the fall, Xaverian High School in Brooklyn.

“Mom, I want you to know what you did to me and how I feel,” his mother Maureen Fitzpatrick recalled as he wrote her the letter. “I want them to hear my story.”

The letter was written after Holy Angels Catholic Academy refunded the family’s $100 application fee and recommended that he repeat seventh grade elsewhere.

The school’s principal reportedly told the boy’s father, 45-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick, that school would not be a “good environment” for Daniel if he was a grade behind and that it could “damage his psyche”.

His father believes the school is to blame for Daniel’s poor grades because they didn’t address the bullying.
“His grades went from passing to his low 40s and 60s,” he said. “His confidence was completely shaken.”
He also claims that one of the teachers named Daniel was “lazy” in front of the class.

“My son shouldn’t have to die to be heard,” Maureen said. “Something is wrong with adults in positions of authority when children can’t come to them for help.”

“No parent should bury their child,” she added.

Daniel’s 17-year-old sister found him hanging in the attic on August 11 with a belt around his neck.
She called for help, but it was too late to save the boy, who his family described as a sensitive softie.
Daniel’s father has a message for the bullies and their parents:

“You can hold your children every night and every day for the rest of your life and their natural life. I don’t get it anymore. Your little monsters did that for me. And my wife. And his sisters. Danny was a kind, gentle little soul. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body… I just wanted to hear him say ‘good morning dad’ one more time and that way I could say ‘good morning’ and ‘I love you’ to him, which I did every day .”