Racist Bullying In School Blamed For 9-Year-Old's Suicide, Police Investigating

Police are investigating the suicide of a nine-year-old girl in Alabama earlier this month after her family claimed she was bullied at school, which resulted in her death. The girl was found dead in her home by her grandmother on Dec.3.

Jasmine Adams said her daughter McKenzie Adams, a fourth-grade student, had told her teacher about being bullied a number of times.

"She told me that this one particular child was writing her nasty notes in class. It was just things you wouldn't think a 9-year-old should know. And my baby to tell me some of the things they had said to her I was like where are they learning this from?” Jasmine said, CBS42 reported.

“Part of it could have been because she rode to school with a white family and a lot of it was race, some of the student bullies would say to her, ‘Why you riding with white people? You’re black. You’re ugly. You should just die,’” the mother added.

Eddwina Harris, the girl’s aunt, said, “She was being bullied the entire school year, with words such as ‘Kill yourself,’ ‘You think you’re white because you ride with that white boy,’ ‘You ugly,’ ‘Black b----,’ ‘Just die.’”

Alex Brasswell, city schools attorney, said, "We are working fully with the Demopolis and Linden police department. They are doing a joint investigation of these allegations. We are cooperating fully and I can't comment on any of the aspects of the investigation until they conclude it.”

Calling the entire situation sad, he added, "Certainly our hearts goes out to the family and friends of Mckenzie and her fellow students as well as her teachers. Demopolis school system has provided grief councilors and crisis councilors at the school since this and ministers and youth ministers have been at the campus since the date of this incident. And we certainly want to extend those services to any students and teachers on our campus as they go through this healing process".

Jasmine feels the entire school system has let them down. "I just felt that our trust was in them that they would do the right thing. And it feels like to me it wasn't it wasn't done,” she said.

Linden Police Chief Robert Alston told ABC News that there was no official report of bullying made to the school.

"According to [school officials], there was no report of bullying made to them officially. But the grandmother did say that she did make a report to the school ... but right now, it's unclear if it was an official report or a conversation," he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Demopolis City School System issued a statement saying, "We have concluded our internal investigation to the allegations of bullying which led to this senseless death. There have been no findings of any reports of bullying by either the student or family. The findings of this internal investigation are consistent with the results of the investigation of the Linden (Alabama) Police Department at this point in time. The Linden Police Department investigation is still pending. All further results will be disseminated as they become available. The Demopolis City School System will continue to have grief counselors, crisis counselors and mental health professionals available to all of our students and teachers".

If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours, every day.