[candymosh]

Dead Teen's Story Leading to New Laws
Parents believe house bills will save lives

Updated: Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 6:21 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 24 May 2011, 6:21 PM CDT

DAMALI KEITH

DAMALI KEITH
Reporter

HOUSTON - He made news for months: a Houston teenager allegedly bullied to death.

Asher Brown's suicide shed light on the problem of bullying. His story is now a possible solution, helping lead to new laws.

Brown's parents have been fighting to help get new bills passed. Monday, on the 8-month anniversary of their son’s death, 2 bills passed.

Brown was relentlessly bullied for being gay, his parents said. He took his own life inside his family's northwest Houston home on September.

David and Amy Truong realize it's too late for their son, but they believe these bills will help save other kids.

"It was a promise I made to Asher the day that he died before his little body left this house,” David said. "We'll never let this happen to any other family."

“I told him that I would never stop fighting until we did something to change this," Amy said.

For months, the Truongs have been testifying before lawmakers in Austin. Persistence paid off when House Bills 1386 and 1942 have passed.

Houston lawmaker Garnet Coleman introduced 1386: a suicide-prevention bill.

"It's designed to teach the school personnel what to look for, how to look for kids who are distressed emotionally," David said.

"It also will allow them (teachers) the opportunity to let the parents know what they're seeing (at school) and refer them (the family) to local services within the community so there is the intervention aspect of it," Amy said.

Safety and violence prevention consultant Barbara Holt believes the bills will be effective and will make a difference.

HB1942 is an anti-bullying bill requiring schools to provide specific training to teachers and staff.

"The trained counselor (or staff member) recognizes what bullying behaviors are,” Holt said. “They have implementation strategies that they can use with the bullied, the bully and the bystander".

Holt was a Houston-area teacher for 20 years.

"As a teacher, I never had any training in bullying prevention. Did I see it in my classroom? Yes. Did I always handle it correctly? No," Holt explained.

An untrained teacher, staff member or even a student might say something to a bully like "cut it out" and simply move on, Holt said. That isn't enough to stop bullying behavior. Someone who is trained will have the tools to intervene and bring an end to the bullying.

"I miss his face. I miss his voice. I miss everything about him. He was such a good person. His friends and classmates they're about to finish the school year now and go on to high school. I think about that's where he should be,” Amy said through her tears. “It's painful. It's painful to even see a school bus pass by the house because I know he'll never come off of one again."

Governor Rick Perry has until June 20 to sign the bills into law.

The Truongs have filed a lawsuit against the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, claiming the district failed to protect their son from bullying.

The district maintains the bullying was not reported until after his death.

Read more: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news...#ixzz1NKCeyuoU

[DiamondSmiles]

Sad how peoples' insecurities cause harm and death to others. Very sad!

[kellyhound]

Asher took his own life with his stepfather’s 9 mm Beretta, which was “stored on one of the closet’s shelves.” There was no suicide note.

His stepfather David found his body, lifeless, after coming home from work.

“I thought he was laying there reading a book or something,” he says.

“My son put a gun to his head because he couldn’t take what he was hearing and the constant teasing.”

His mother Amy came home to police sirens and yellow tape at her house.

“They called him different names for being homosexual,” she says. “He just had enough

HB1942 is an anti-bullying bill requiring schools to provide specific training to teachers and staff.

"The trained counselor (or staff member) recognizes what bullying behaviors are,” Holt said. “They have implementation strategies that they can use with the bullied, the bully and the bystander".

good plan

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[candymosh]

I remember seeing this on the news. I still can't wrap my head around how a child that young does something like that. There was a facebook page that started up after his death too, they took it down because people were still bullying this kid even after death.

[renfairegeek]

So sad... hope the teachers will step up and actually implement the bill.