A 13-YEAR-old girl from Tacoma, Wash., committed suicide by jumping off an interstate bridge on Friday, May 29—days after her father filmed himself cutting her long hair as punishment for an unspecified wrongdoing. The video was posted on YouTube.
Fil-Am Izabel Laxamana, a student at Giaudrone Middle School, left several notes to her family before she suddenly exited her grandmother’s car and jumped from the South 48th Street Bridge over Interstate 5 on Friday afternoon. She was taken to a hospital in Seattle, where she died the next day.
The original 15-second viral video that is supposedly of Izabel, filmed by her father, has been removed from YouTube. One of Laxamana’s friends shared it by taping the original on his phone.
The video shows the now short-haired girl staring blankly at the camera in what looks like a garage.
“The consequences of getting messed up, man, you lost all that beautiful hair,” a male voice, Izabel’s father, is heard saying from behind the camera. The video shows the long locks of black hair scattered on the floor in front of the young girl.
“Was it worth it?” her father asks sternly.
“No,” Izabel responds quietly.
“How many times did I warn you?” he asked, to which she whispers, “Twice.”
The video was not posted by her father, who never meant for it to be published, according to Tacoma police. It was apparently uploaded by a third party who had been sent the video and “thought they were being of help” by sharing it publicly.
“The girl’s decision to kill herself also doesn’t appear to be related to the hair-cutting,” said Tacoma Public Information Officer Loretta Cool. “She was a 13-year-old that made some poor choices, meaning that she didn’t have to kill herself.”
Though police have denied that the video and the suicide are directly linked, many people are calling out the father for being a possible motivation for the act. A Facebook page, Justice for Izabel, is filled with cries for her father to be criminally prosecuted or else publicly shamed himself.
Tacoma Stories, a blog run by Tacoma-native Jack Cameron, claimed that the public shaming led to Izabel’s death and constituted abuse in a post: “Public shaming is a form of abuse. There are those who will say that it teaches a lesson. So does punching someone in the face. That doesn’t make it okay to do to your children… I also hope her father gets the help he so clearly needs, and that her family can heal from these traumatic events brought on by public shaming.”
Jezebel notes that “there is little information about what else was going on Laxamana’s life,” although in a Google Plus post, she wrote about feeling bullied and judged at school. “I feel hated most of the time I’m in school, I feel looked down on and I get judged a lot…In a school with so many people its weird to say I feel alone but the truth is that you really do feel alone.”
“I’m a little concerned for the kids out there who really are experiencing problems and that with the notoriety of this case they’re going to think that this is the solution, and it’s not,” said Cool, also noting that the family’s choice of discipline was poorly thought.
“There are so many ways we can intervene and help. The message that should get out is that if you’re aware someone is depressed or having problems at home or school or feeling suicidal, people, there’s help out there for them. Call and we can get that person help.”
Skilled, trained counselors are available 24/7 through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-6255.
Guidance counselors were at Giaudrone Middle School over the week following Izabel’s death. Students left flowers, stuffed animals, and chalk messages outside of the campus. Counselors also met with staff before school started Monday to coach them in how to talk to students about the suicide, according to Tacoma Public Schools spokesman Dan Voelpel.
“District counselors and police and fire department chaplains were meeting with students in small groups,” Voelpel said. Giaudrone staff and students were also informed about a request from the Laxamana family for privacy during the time of grief, and not to be contacted.
(With reports from the Tacoma News Tribune, The Independent, Daily Mail, NY Daily News, Jezebel)
