SUICIDE-KID TWIST
Mom a heavy drinker: ACS report
Young Staten Island suicide victim Danny Fitzpatrick suffered from angry outbursts and failing grades at school — but also from a difficult home life that included his mother’s heavy drinking, according to a report by city childwelfare officials.
“Danny said mom being drunk affects him in everything and makes him angry,” the report said, according to The Washington Post.
“He said dad also drinks but controls himself more than mom,” it read.
The report was filed last fall, nearly a year before the boy used a belt to hang himself in the attic of his home just days shy of his 14th birthday.
In interviews and searing YouTube videos, his parents have blamed the death on relentless bullying and heedless administrators at his Brooklyn school, Holy Angels Catholic Academy.
But the Administration for Chil- dren’s Services report offers another piece to a suicide that remains a disturbing puzzle.
“Student can’t remember a time when mom was not drunk often,” the report said.
It continued: “Danny denies physical abuse by mom and dad, but says Kristen, his older sister, hides him in the attic or his room when mom is drunk.
“He says his dad and Kristen protect him. Danny denies suicidal thoughts but feels angry, sad, has thoughts of wanting to run away.
“Mother is blaming his teachers for his failures and has written several accusatory letters to school. Student is afraid of both parents’ anger,” the report said.
Parents and students, meanwhile, confirmed that Danny was a boy with a difficult home life.
“I knew he was having trouble,” said one parent, a retired NYPD detective. “I was trying to be a friend.”
The ex-cop’s daughter also tried to reach out to Danny but instead was threatened during angry outbursts, the dad said.
“He was angry because he lost a volleyball game,” the dad remem- bered. “He told her, ‘I should punch you because we lost.’ ”
“There was drinking and abuse in the home,” the retired cop added.
“They are extending that abuse to other parents’ children by doing this online,” he said, in reference to the parents posting a letter Danny wrote naming his tormenters.
The family lawyer, Scott Rynecki, dismissed the accusations as having been “fed” to ACS as part of a school cover-up
Ultimately, ACS found “no credible evidence” to believe Danny had been abused or mistreated, according to a letter Rynecki showed The Post.