Rebecca Sedwick Suicide: Teen Accused of Bullying Speaks Out, Doesn't Feel She Did Anything Wrong
One day after the charges against the teens accused of bullying Rebecca Sedwick to death were dropped, the younger girl, Katelyn Roman, is speaking out. She said that she doesn't feel she did anything wrong to Sedwick but regrets her schoolmate's death.
"I do not feel I did anything wrong," Roman, 12, said on the Today show Thursday morning. "It's not OK to bully, and when you have a chance, stand up to bullies."
Until now, Roman's identity has been kept relatively secret, given her young age. But her family wanted to come forward to clear her name and address the issue of bullying head-on. The elder teen, Guadalupe Shaw, 14, was also accused of the bullying and posting a harsh statement online, claiming she didn't care that Sedwick was dead, but her family adamantly denied Shaw's participation.
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"It was basically just they had a confrontation at school, they had a fight and then it was over with," Emilio Roman, Katelyn's father, said on Today. "Then to actually turn around and say that she bullied her and all this other stuff they said… it was totally uncalled for."
Earlier, Roman's family issued a statement offering their condolences to the Sedwick family and noted that Katelyn was a "loving, caring and supportive young girl with many friends."
Emilio noted that he was not pleased with Sheriff Grady Judd's behavior throughout the situation and claimed he made Katelyn into someone she was not.
"It was uncalled for, for Grady Judd to go up there and throw her picture up there and people coming to my house and trying to come and threaten my family, threaten me on the phone, threaten me at my house. I mean, it was just crazy the way he did that," Emilio said.
However, now that the charges against Roman and Shaw have been dropped, their lives may have some chance of returning to normal. Roman and Shaw are currently receiving counseling, which was what Sheriff Judd wanted for the girls.
