A 12-year-old girl died by suicide after enduring relentless bullying throughout the school year, according to her family. Flora Martinez, a sixth-grader at Duane D. Keller Middle School in Las Vegas, died on May 7.
The little girl’s parents are holding the Clark County School District responsible for their daughter’s tragic death, alleging that the district failed to protect her.
Her mother, Alice Martinez, told 8News, “Look how hard it was on my daughter. My daughter was literally bullied to death.”
“I feel like the school had a duty to keep her safe, while she was in their care and they just failed miserably,” Alice Martinez added.
The harassment began almost immediately at the beginning of the 2023-24 academic year, the report added.
Flora’s family reported the ongoing torment to the school’s assistant principal, but things didn’t improve, according to her family.
The 12-year-old’s mother submitted paperwork to transfer her out of the middle school, but the request was allegedly denied in October last year, the report stated. Ms Flora’s mother revealed that they already had her stay home for two weeks because of the “incidents”.
“This wasn’t just one incident that happened, and you know, she decided to take her life,” her father said, revealing it was “months and months and months of bullying that built up” until she “just couldn’t take it no more.”
Ms Flora’s former classmate Rico said that she was always “so nice to everybody”.
He added, “I felt like it’s my fault because I should have really done something. I should have pushed everybody out of the way. Got to her.”
Ms Flora’s funeral took place on Thursday.
This comes after a 10-year-old Indiana boy, Sammy Teusch, took his own life on May 5 after relentless bullying in school.
