Shame on your rush to judge father of girl who took her own life

On July 23, 2003, a good college friend of mine started his day like he normally did. He went to work like he normally would during a summer internship he landed. He took the elevator up to the 24th floor where his office was and at some point, for no known reason, he took an office chair, smashed through the window, and jumped to his death.

And in the aftermath of all this, because no one saw it coming, people started to come up with their own narratives to explain why he would do something like this. Some said he was depressed, some immediately blamed the stress of work, some blamed a medication he was on to stop biting his nails. No one really knew why he did what he did, certainly not people who didn’t know him, but managed to somehow come up with an opinion to explain his suicide.

Last week, we learned of a 13-year-old girl, Izabel Laxamana, who decided to take her own life by jumping off the I-5 overpass in Tacoma. I decided not to talk about it on the show because at the time, we had virtually no information. But the lack of information didn’t stop a bunch of people from creating a narrative to explain why this girl killed herself.

I saw a lot of folks blaming a YouTube video that was posted that showed this daughter being “shamed” by her dad.

In the video the dad is heard saying, according to the New Tribune:

“The consequences of getting messed up, man, you lost all that beautiful hair,” her father says. The camera then pans down to a pile of black hair on the ground.

“Was it worth it?” the father asks.

“No,” Izabel replies.

“How many times did I warn you?” he asks.

“A lot,” she replies in a near whisper.

Now immediately, folks decided that this was the reason the girl took her own life. They said it was bad parenting and he should be ashamed. Even though I tend to agree with the sentiment that this is not good parenting, the vitriol coming from people made it seem like the dad wanted his daughter to kill herself. That they were using the death as a moment to say, “See? This is what happens when you’re a bad parent!” They exploited the tragedy to make a point about parenting, usually pointing out they’re so much better at parenting than this dad.

But the truth is, the vast majority of the time, a “shaming” video alone isn’t going to lead someone to take their own life. Taking your own life doesn’t happen because you simply get embarrassed; more often than not, there’s an underlying issue that is much bigger than embarrassment. It’s not a black or white issue.

Was this the exception to that? Maybe; maybe not. But you had a media all too willing to report the story even though they didn’t know what happened and why. They saw a dead girl and a YouTube video and that’s all they needed on a slow news week.

But now I’m talking about it because we have more details that shed light on what happened and why and the first part of this is that the dad didn’t upload the shaming video to YouTube. A friend did. And, that video wasn’t posted before her suicide, according to Tacoma Police.

So that evil father who was trying to shame his girl for the world to see, didn’t actually post the video and it wasn’t posted before the suicide. Yet people have been calling for his prosecution.

We also learned that she left a total of eight suicide notes to family and friends, and one presumably for police. In the letter, Tacoma PD said, “…she was very clearly trying to explain to him [her dad] that she loves him very much and he is not responsible for her actions.”

So now that we have the details, we can start having a conversation. Let’s start with an apology to a dad who already lost his daughter. His actions may have been misguided, but to pin a suicide on him at a time when he and his family are going through hell? That just seems cruel.