Texas 9-Year-Old Boy Hanged Self At School.

A 9-year-old boy was found hanged in the bathroom of a Dallas-area
elementary school in an apparent suicide, police said. Counselors were
on hand Friday for students and parents.
Authorities in The Colony say the fourth-grader was found by staff at
Stewart’s Creek Elementary School on Thursday afternoon. Lt. Darren
Brockway said that the boy “had reportedly hung himself in a bathroom”
and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Autopsy results are
pending.
Police in The Colony, about 20 miles north of Dallas, are
investigating the circumstances of Montana Lance’s death but don’t
expect any criminal charges. The school district confirmed the basics of
the incident but declined to comment further because of privacy
concerns.
A team of grief counselors met people at the school Friday. They will
be available to students, parents, teachers and staff through next
week, said Lewisville Independent School District spokeswoman Karen
Permetti.
Some parents were concerned that they did not learn about the
incident from the school, but Permetti said the facts were sketchy until
about the time school let out Thursday. The school is sending a letter
about the incident home with students Friday, Permetti said.
“We do want to stress to our parents to encourage their children to
discuss their feelings because children all process their grief
differently,” Permetti said.
Suicides among young children are extremely rare. There were on
average just 10 suicides a year among 10-year-olds between 1999 and
2005, according to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
Early last year in suburban Chicago, a 10-year-old boy hanged himself
on a restroom coat hook. In 2008, a 7-year-old boy in Austin died after
being hanged by his shirt from a coat hook in a dressing room, though
authorities said he might have been playing a game in which students
jumped from bench to bench while trying to touch the room’s ceiling.
Story by WOAI