Parents: Our 10-Year-Old Girl Hanged Self Over Video

Ashawnty Davis' family blames bullying at school
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2017 12:17 PM CST
Parents: Our 10-Year-Old Girl Hanged Self Over Video
   (Getty/BrianAJackson)

Ashawnty Davis was a happy girl who loved basketball and hoped to one day play in the WNBA. But that was before a video showing the 10-year-old fighting with a fellow student at school was posted to social media, say her parents. Already the victim of bullying, Ashawnty endured further torment as views of the video rose on app Musical.ly around the end of October, her father, Anthony Davis, tells KDVR. "My daughter came home two weeks later and hanged herself in the closet," says her mother, Latoshia Harris. A fifth-grade student at Sunrise Elementary School in Aurora, Colo., Ashawnty died Wednesday after spending two weeks on life support at Children's Hospital Colorado.

Her parents now say they're sharing their daughter's story in the hope of preventing other suicides linked to bullying, per the New York Daily News. "It's just devastating … and we have to stop it within our kids," says Davis. "I want other parents to know that it's happening," adds Harris. "That was my baby." In a statement mentioning its zero-tolerance policy for bullying, the Cherry Creek School District describes Ashawnty's death as "a heartbreaking loss." Stressing the events of the video "did not take place during school hours," the school district says officials turned the footage over to police as soon as they were made aware of it, while also "addressing the matter with students." (More suicide stories.)

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