School: Boy, 8, who killed self never said he was bullied

CINCINNATI — An 8year-old boy shown on surveillance video being knocked to the floor unconscious at school two days before he killed himself told staff he had fainted and never said he had been bullied or assaulted, a school spokeswoman said Friday.

Gabriel Taye’s mother didn’t learn of the bullying until her attorneys saw a copy of an email written by a Cincinnati police homicide detective in an investigative file that describes the scene outside a boys’ bathroom, her lawyers said. The attorneys have questioned why the mother was told he fainted on Jan. 24 when the video shows he had been injured by another boy at Carson Elementary School.

The school spokeswoman said administrators weren’t aware of the recording until days later when the detective investigating Gabriel’s suicide requested surveillance videos from security officials.

Meanwhile, the Hamilton County coroner said she is reopening the investigation into Gabriel’s suicide. He hanged himself with a necktie in the bedroom of his Cincinnati apartment on Jan. 26.

On Friday, a small group of demonstrators gathered on the sidewalk outside Carson Elementary, with some parents complaining about their children being bullied.

The district released copies of a 24-minute-long video that shows one boy bullying other students and then, according to the mother’s attorneys, pushing Gabriel into a wall when he tried to shake the boy’s hand and knocking him unconscious. The spokeswoman said it’s unclear from the video what happened to Gabriel