When Gabriel was in second grade, there were two instances when students hit him, but his parents said the school never called them.
In October 2016, three months before he died, students punched or hit him, and once when he hit back, school leaders warned he’d be punished if he defended himself again.
On Halloween, Gabriel suffered a head injury, but the school's former principal, Ruthenia Jackson, and former assistant principal, Jeffrey McKenzie, told his mother they could not determine how it happened. They refused her request to look at video footage of the playground.
Earlier in January 2017, Gabriel was attacked and injured three other times. McKenzie told Gabriel’s mother that no video captured the incidents, and Gabriel’s injuries amounted to “horseplay.” McKenzie did not tell Gabriel’s mother that he had suspended two students for attacking Gabriel.
On Jan. 24, 2017, a student pushed Gabriel into a wall of a boys’ restroom, the blow knocking Gabriel unconscious for seven minutes. In a school video of the assault, the other student can be seen dancing over Gabriel.
McKenzie found Gabriel and simply stood over him. School officials did not call 911 as CPS policy requires. The school nurse, Margaret McLaughlin, only told his mother that Gabriel fainted. Later that day, he complained of stomach pain and spent several hours at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
He stayed home from school on Jan. 25, but on Jan. 26, two other students bullied Gabriel in a Carson restroom and stole his water bottle. He died by suicide after school that day in his bedroom at his mother's Westwood apartment.