The school resource officer at Belleview Santos Elementary School was called into action Tuesday when a student told a staff member “she was going to kill herself.”
The resource officer, who is a Marion County sheriff’s deputy, joined with the school’s dean and psychologist to meet with the 10-year-old girl at the school, located at 9600 S Hwy. 441. The girl said that “her classmates were being mean to her and calling her names.” And she admitted to making the statement about killing herself but said “she didn’t mean it,” a sheriff’s office report states, adding that the third-grader reiterated that “she did not want to die or harm herself and only made the statement because she was upset.”
The deputy contacted the girl’s mother and made her aware of the situation. And he joined the dean in meeting with the girl’s classmates to counsel them on being kind to one another, the report says.
Due to the girl’s age and mental capacity, it was determined that her comments “were not credible and that she was no threat to herself,” the report says, adding that she didn’t meet the criteria for a Baker Act.