300 attend vigil for student who killed self at Southgate school

Southgate — A crowd of about 300 students, parents and staff members gathered Thursday night for a vigil honoring an eighth-grader who shot himself to death at Davidson Middle School.

The attendees formed a circle outside Anderson High School, where students held white candles and wore T-shirts that read "RIP." They listened as the 13-year-old boy's 25-year-old half-sister addressed them.

"This is so awesome, because that was my brother," she said.

"Thank you everyone," she told the crowd. Some shouted "God bless you!" in reply.

The Detroit News is not identifying the boy or his family members.

The crowd prayed, listened to a poetry reading and released balloons.

Davidson student Samantha Dow, 14, who attended the vigil, said she knew the victim as a "really funny and outgoing person."

"He was normal. He didn't show any signs of bullying, but I guess most people hide it because they are afraid it will get worse," she said.

The boy shot himself just after the start of classes Thursday morning in a second-floor bathroom. Police said he took the gun from a family member's home.

The firearm, a .40 caliber Glock handgun, was legally registered, said Thomas Coombs, Southgate's public safety director.

Coombs would not identify the family member who owned the gun.

Police and school officials said it did not appear the student was bullied.

Coombs told The Detroit News late Thursday afternoon that the boy left a note, which he characterized as "an open letter that talked about the drama and difficulty of being a 13-year-old."

Earlier in the day, at a news conference, Coombs said he had not read the note but had been told it "does address a specific person, apparently someone he knew from the school."

Courtney Widby, 13, an eighth-grader at the school and a friend of the victim, said the boy who found him was in her class and told the teacher when he returned. "The kid in my class went to the bathroom and came back and said he was on the floor," she said.

She said officials put the school on lockdown and sent eighth-graders to the auditorium and ninth-graders to the gym.

"They announced it and said some kid shot himself and that was it," she said. "I didn't know it was (him)."

Courtney said she didn't hear the gunshot, but she talked to students in other classes who said they did.

She said she saw the boy before classes began Thursday morning and he was in a class across the hall from hers. "He looked normal," she said.

She described him as a smart, upbeat boy who got good grades.

"He was funny. He was a really nice kid. He was like a straight-A student, like the class clown," Courtney said. "If anyone was felling bad, he would always try to make them feel better."

Courtney said she had never seen or heard anyone bully him, but students at the school were talking Thursday about the possibility in class."

Courtney said she and friends were making T-shirts to wear to a vigil Thursday night in the boy's honor.

The student was not the victim of bullying, the leader of Southgate Community Schools insisted hours after the teen's death.

Superintendent Bill Grusecki told The Detroit News that after speaking to parents of Davidson students who were direct friends with the teen, he is convinced that bullying is not behind the suicide.

"All I know from what we found out with parents there is no way this was a bullying issue. These kids of these parents said the kid was very popular, never complained of having any issues in the school, had friends," Grusecki said.

Police and school officials said the student brought the gun to school Thursday morning and committed suicide in an upstairs bathroom.

The student shot himself once in the head shortly after classes began at 8 a.m. at the school. Another student found the boy in the bathroom and told a teacher, thinking he had a head injury.

Grusecki said the teen was in class Thursday morning when he asked to be excused to go to the bathroom. He did not take anything with him as he left class, which suggests he went to his locker to obtain the weapon, Grusecki said.

"I give credit to the first responders. The staff that found him… I have a vision in my mind that is never going to leave me," he said.

Grusecki said staff at the school had no idea the student, whom he described as being "somewhat popular," had a gun at the school, which doesn't have metal detectors. Roughly 800 students attend the school at 15800 Trenton Road.

He implored all gun owners to lock up their weapons and keep them away from children.

"A family is in mourning tonight; they are suffering through a great tragedy. A young man got his hand on a weapon and brought it into school. We need to challenge everyone who has weapons at home — they need to lock them up," Grusecki said.

The student was taken to Oakwood Southshore Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Coombs said. His body is expected to be sent to the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office on Friday where an autopsy is to be performed.

Coombs said the boy's reasons for ending his life are unclear.

"We are not finding anything that suggests there was a reason whether he was suffering from depression or feeling bad from an incident," Coombs said at the news conference. "We haven't found anything."

The student did not have any other siblings at the school, police said.

Students were released to their parents Thursday morning after what was first described as a "police situation," forcing officials to lock down the school, which serves only eighth- and ninth-grade students.

Police responded at 8:14 a.m. Thursday, and the school immediately went into lockdown, police said.

"After we made sure the building was safe and everything under control, parents and guardians were notified individually," Southgate Police Lt. Kasper Ohannasian said.

The school will remain closed to students until Monday. Counselors will be made available for students and staff starting Friday, Grusecki said. No other schools are affected.

School officials ask that students returning to school on Monday don't bring backpacks and instead carry books by hand. They plan to search students as they come in and are looking into added security at the school until they can find out whether they can add metal detectors.

"You don't think this will happen in your community.But it did. I have children in the school district also andwhen I received the phone call, my wife andI just hugged and prayed," said Paul Knott, the schoolboard vice president.

William Boda, a ninth-grader at Davidson, was inside in an English class on the school's second floor when the shooting occurred. He said he did not hear a gunshot but was told a student took his life in a second-floor bathroom.

Boda and other students were under the lockdown for about an hour, during which time they were told to stand in the corner of their classrooms, away from the doors, with the doors locked. Boda said his teacher had no information about what was happening but students could see police cars and ambulances outside the school building.

Then the principal gathered everyone in the school gym to talk about what happened.

"He said a kid shot himself, a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He said everything was going to be fine," said Boda, 15.

Police told students not to publish any information about the incident on social media sites, saying "it would make matters worse," Boda said.

"It's sad that it happened at our school. I'm concerned about things at our school. Some people are saying bullying was part of it," Boda said.

Boda said considering the student brought a gun to school to commit suicide, he would like the school to begin security checks at the door.

"That would be safe," he said.

Boda said he still felt safe at his school and said if he had a problem such as being bullied, he would go to a teacher to talk.

"I feel if he has a good relationship with a teacher, this incident would not have happened," he said.

Alexis Barsegian is a student at Davidson but who was at the high school for her French class when the suicide occurred. She said she didn't know the student personally but saw him smiling in the hallway on occasion.

"I never saw him get bullied," she said. "The bullying, it has been such a big thing for a long time, over the Internet and in person. There is so much pain for people. We do have groups to stop it. I don't think it helped (him)."

Parent Duane Harvey said he was summoned to the school to pick up his eighth-grade son.

"They called us and told us that we had to pick up our children. There had been a shooting," Harvey said outside the school.

Asked what was going through his mind as he drove to the building, Harvey responded: "The safety of my son, just hoping he was alright."

Steve Ezikian, deputy superintendent of Wayne Regional Education Service Agency, said Thursday morning he spoke with Southgate school officials who informed him there was a crisis team at the school.

Support services in the form of additional counselors or transportation can be provided by Wayne RESA (a regional educational service agency) if the district needs them, Ezikian said.

Jan Ellis, with the state Department of Education, said Thursday it is very rare for a suicide to occur inside a public school.

jchambers@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-2226

Staff writer George Hunter contributed.