Last Monday, Florida sheriff, Grady Judd and the Polk County Sheriff’s office arrested the 14-year old and 12-year old girls who were associated with the bullying of Rebecca Sedwick. Sedwick took her own life on September 9th, jumping from the top of a concrete silo tower after being the victim of both physical and social bullying. The 14-year old and 12-year old bullies, whose names cannot be released due to their age, had been sending Sedwick nasty messages via social networking sites and apps such as Kik, Facebook, and Ask.FM. Such messages included one sent by the 14-year old, which read, “Drink bleach and die… No one likes you.”
As if this was not enough, the same girl went on Facebook after Rebecca committed suicide and posted, “Yes, ik (I know) I bullied Rebecca nd she killed herself but IDGAF. (I don’t give a ****) When sheriff Judd saw this, he immediately knew that something had to be done before the girl attempted to bully anyone else. As Judd called the home of the 14-year old girl and spoke with her father, it became clear that her parents were in complete denial about the situation, claiming that their daughter would never do such a thing. The parents later told ABC News that their daughter’s Facebook account had been hacked, and that it was not actually she who wrote the post.
The Sheriff’s Office is now looking into pressing the parents with criminal charges relating to the contribution of the delinquency of a minor. Judd stated on an ABC News interview, “They (the parents) don’t think there’s a problem here, and that is the problem. It’s kind of like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, that’s what we have here.”