What was this guy thinking?

Although I don't have any kids of my own, I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child. And within that non-imagining, I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child to suicide.

Yet it happens an awful lot, and it's been on the uptick.

The unimaginable recently happened to a family in New Jersey, whose 14 year old killed herself a couple of days after a video of her being violently beaten up in a school corridor started making the rounds on social media. 

To layer on to the unimagining about the death of your child to suicide, the superintendent of the area's schools chose not to "no comment." Chose not to make a comment - however banal, mealy-mouthed, and ass-covering - about what a terrible tragedy this child's death was. 

No, instead:

In astonishing emails to DailyMail.com, Triantafillos Parlapanides, the Superintendent of New Jersey's Central Regional School District who is paid $190,000-a-year, said Adriana [Kuch] - who killed herself in her bedroom closet on February 3 two days after being beaten - had been offered counseling 'for drugs'. 

He also made a shocking allegation against the girl's grieving father Michael, a 22-year Army veteran, claiming he 'had an affair' when Adriana was seven that drove her mother to commit suicide, and later 'moved the woman into the house'. (Source: Daily Mail)

Nothing to see here, folks. Just a seemingly grownup man, in a position of visibility and responsibility, trash talking a dead child and her grieving family. And doing it by emailing the Daily Mail, a British tabloid that notoriously traffics in sensationalism, celeb gossip, trash talking, right wing bluster, and smears.

What the ever-lovin' fuck was Triantafillos Parlapanides thinking?

Sure, he wanted to protect his realm, deflect blame for the school's response to the incident.

But, but, but...

In addition to his comments about the child who killed herself, Parlapanides continued to irk the overall community by trying to tamp down student protests, and by defending the school's decision to not call in the police, treating the beat down as a routine "girls-will-be-girls" hallway incident. (If you saw the video, the attack was pretty violent. This wasn't someone hip-chucking another kid into a locker and smirking an "excuse me" their way.) 

The footage itself lasts less than a minute. It shows Kuch walking down the hallway with her boyfriend as the kids recording the moment approach them going in the opposite direction. Suddenly, there's a quick movement from someone near the phone-holder and pink liquid sprays out of a cup, all over Kuch. She is then set upon by at least two people, the video shows, slammed into school lockers and surrounded by what is now a trio of attackers.

She crumples on the floor. The three classmates, backpacks swinging, fall over themselves a bit near the lockers, almost stepping on Kuch as she crawls around on the floor, trying to collect herself. Then they start shoving her, dragging her almost along the ground on her knees, raking her against the red school lockers, the white soles of her shoes the only part of her visible underneath her attackers at various points. Then one girl grabs her by the hair.

The violent attack continues for another few seconds before two adults run into the video frame and pull the attackers off Kuch. She is seen writhing on the ground, her hands holding either side of her head as a man stands over her. He then helps the bruised and bloodied girl up. The footage wraps. (Source: NY Times)

Parlapanides suggested that "it was up to the parents to press charges." (Charges have been brought against the students involved in the attack.) He claimed that it was quite enough to indefinitely suspend the students.

“We’re not going to double whammy a kid where they’re suspended and then police charges as well,” Mr. Parlapanides said.

I'm not a big fan of dragging cops into schools to drag kids out in situations that school personnel should be able to handle. (I'm thinking of the first grader who, a few years ago, was having a meltdown. So the school called the police, who took the kiddo out in cuffs.) But when there are obviously times when you need to bring the police into a school. And that's when criminal violence has taken place. As in the kids brutalizing Adriana Kuch. 

I don't know. Maybe if social media hadn't been involved, this incident - despite Adriana's bloodied face - wouldn't have been considered that big a deal, something worthy of police involvement. And, sure, kids need to be able to work out their differences. (There were plenty of fights - 99.9999% involved boys - when I was a kid. Most of them, in my recall, were one on one. Most involved pushing, shouting, and trash talking. I wasn't hanging around watching fights - I didn't fight; my friends didn't fight - but I don't remember kids actually getting beaten up. Maybe an occasional black eye or fat lip.) 

But, but, but...

If these thug kids had, say, beaten up someone who wasn't a fellow student, someone they set upon outside of school? They would have been arrested. They should have been arrested. Why is it any different if it happens in school?

Anyway, Triantafillos Parlapanides is no longer the school superintendent of NJ's Central Regional School District. He (wisely) resigned.

So he'll have plenty of time to think about how idiotic it was to make those comments to the Daily Mail. Hope he uses it well.