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Six Hundred Absent At Hoover High After Suicide Notes Found Inside The Alabama School Building

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 03:01 PST, Oct 11, 2015

Nearly 600 are absent at Hoover High School after suicides notes were found from a student who said he was going to kill himself on the campus. The Birmingham, Alabama, high school has a population of 2,950 students, according to district representative Jason Gaston.

Before the nearly 600 absent marks were handed out on Friday, Hoover Police Captain Gergg Rector said identical suicide notes were found in the boy’s rest rooms on all three levels of the school building at Hoover High. The letters were reportedly identical, and indicated the male student was depressed.

“We believe this student likely acted alone, and it’s not appropriate at this time to judge his actions or behavior,” Captain Rector said. “Our primary focus at this point, along with school officials, is to guide this young man and his family towards appropriate resources.”

The student who wrote the suicide notes was identified by authorities on Thursday evening. Local law enforcement agents are attempting to get help for the Hoover High student who threatened suicide, MSN reports. There are 222 teachers on staff at the high school, which has won 68 athletic championships between 2000 and 2015.

School officials at the district “respect” the decision by parents to keep the nearly 600 absent students home on Friday, Gaston added. The Hoover High School representative also stated that the normal routine at the school should now resume. He said that the student responsible for the suicide notes, which prompted the 600 absences, has been “dealt with appropriately.”

“We certainly understand, though, that this has been a stressful week for students, parents, and school employees,” Gaston said.

Because the general public did not know exactly how the student planned to commit suicide on campus, parents were reportedly concerned that the male teenager might have also been planning some type of school shooting or violent act against others before taking his own life. Students and parents concerned about dealing with a potentially mentally unstable teen who wanted to kill himself reportedly to exercise extreme caution and skip school on Friday, according to a Star Pulse report.

The Hoover High School suicide notes did not mention the method of suicide the teenager was planning, nor did the letters mention any type of weapons or a desire to harm others, AL.com reports.

Gaston said the district and the community were fortunate that the suicide notes issues was resolved so quickly. Hulin credited the quite resolution of the matter to the investigative excellence shown by the members of the local police department and high school principal Don Hulin.

“The sad reality is that we live in uncertain times and occasionally we’re faced with events beyond our control,” Gaston also noted. The school district official said administrators and staff work to prevent what they can and then confront issues which still occur and deal with them the best way they know how.

“It’s time to put this one behind us and move on,” the Hoover High representative said.

Hoover High School can trace its history in the Southeast back to one of the original “Over the Mountain” schools — W.A. Berry High School. The Alabama campus reportedly offers a “differentiated learning” experience, a low student to teacher ratio, and functions like a much smaller and close-knit campus.

Would you keep your child home from school if suicide notes stating a student was going to kill himself or herself on a specific day were found in the building?

[Image via Shutterstock.com]

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