Masconomet Student Takes Message To YouTube After Being Bullied
BOXFORD (CBS) - Police are investigating a possible hate crime at Masconomet Regional High School. A bisexual teen says classmates attacked her, punching and kicking her, and she took her pain to YouTube to tell her story.
Eighteen year old Molli Marshall says no one really knew she was bullied for most of her life until this week. The idea to record the video was taken from another bullying victim who's made his own impact.
Fourteen year old Jonah Mowry's heart wrenching video has gone viral with seven million views. It starts out simply as a teenage boy telling his name, but it quickly turns to an emotional confession. Without speaking, he holds flashcards telling people he's been bullied since first grade because he is gay, and he is scared to enter eighth grade because he's afraid the bullying will continue. It ends with a final message that he's too strong now to back down.
WBZ-TV's Beth Germano reports
Using the same style, Molli Marshall recorded herself holding similar flash cards telling people she has a story to tell. She says she's struggling with depression, has attempted suicide twice, has cut herself on her arm and leg, and says she was jumped by four kids from her school.
"They told me to leave school and to kill myself," she says in the video with cards. "With notecards you're saying so much without saying anything at all. It symbolizes people not talking about such a big problem and people being afraid to talk," she said.
Her video is not only being watched, with more than thirteen hundred views so far, but her Facebook page is a constant stream of supportive messages. "People I don't know, people I do know, people I used to know," she said. "I wanted to make people realize that bullying is not ok, and you don't have to put up with it."
Marshall hopes bullying will come out of the shadows. Already other victims, inspired by her video, are sending her links to theirs. In a letter to parents, the Superintendent of the Masconomet Regional School District says the video offers "serious, distressing information".
He says authorities were immediately notified when the school learned of the incident that took place outside a store in a community bordering the towns of Middleton, Boxford and Topsfield.
"This is a very serious allegation," writes Superintendent Darrell Lockwood. "As described, it would be considered a hate crime."
Molli Marshall says she has confidence that the silent words in her video are being heard loud and clear. "It's humbling and it's crazy. I didn't expect this many people to see the video."
