Philadelphia

Amanda Cummings: Family of bullied teen calls for justice

Cummings and her mother.

One day before a wake service will be held for 15-year-old Amanda Cummings, her family is calling on her friends and classmates to come forward and reveal the students who they say viciously bullied her before she died after jumping in front of a city bus.

“I want names. I want to know who these kids were,” said Amanda’s uncle, Keith Cummings. “It’s not right we had to lose my niece over this. It was years of torment she went through.”

Cummings, a sophomore at New Dorp High School in Staten Island, died Monday from injuries she sustained after a witness reported seeing her jump in front of a bus on December 27, according to the NYPD.

According to Keith Cummings, a suicide note Amanda was carrying when she died read that she was unable to live after recently breaking up with a 19-year-old man.

Cummings said his niece’s cell phone held threatening text messages she had received from both the 19-year-old and from other girls at her school, warning her to stay away from him.

On Amanda’s Facebook profile, her family members lashed out at her bullies and called for those who know their names to step forward and reveal information.

Cumming’s sister, Dawn Weber, wrote a message on Amanda’s wall this morning asking for information:

“AS A SISTER, A MOTHER, AND A HUMAN BEING WITH A BEATING HEART THAT IS BROKEN, I AM BEGGING YOU KIDS, ANYONE WITH ANY CONCRETE PROOF OF BULLYING TOWARD MY SISTER, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. PLEASE. I NEED WITNESSES WILLING TO STEP FORWARD TO MAKE LEGAL STATEMENTS [sic].”

Amanda’s mother, CeCe Weber, also wrote on the wall earlier on Wednesday:

“This is to all you evil son of a bitches that picked on, talked about
and threatened my baby, I HOPE YOU DIE and I HOPE YOU SUFFER.”

Keith Cummings told Metro he wants statutory rape charges filed against the 19-year-old his niece had been seeing.

Today, he said he wants to report others who bullied Amanda to police.

“I want some charges filed. I want something that’s going to give them torment in their life like my niece had,” Cummings said. “I want justice.”

Follow Cassandra Garrison on Twitter @CassieatMetro


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