Community mourns the death of Long Beach teen

More than 100 residents joined relatives and friends of Brendan Carr, an eighth-grade Long Beach Middle School student who died on Saturday, at a candlelight vigil in front of City Hall on Monday night.

Family and friends acknowledged that Brendan had taken his own life, and pointed to bullying as a possible reason.

City and school officials did not take part in the vigil, and Brendan’s mother, Julie Carr, said she had been advised that holding such a remembrance might inspire other struggling young people to end their own lives. But Carr added that she felt it was important to honor Brendan’s life and those of others who have committed suicide.

“My son was a gentle spirit, and all he wanted to do was be loved,” Carr said. “If he wasn’t loved the way he needed to be by his peers for any reason, now is the moment that he knows that he is loved, and all of our children who have ever gone away like this know now, from all of you here, that they are so loved.”

“We send our condolences to the family on this tragic event, and we encourage anybody who is feeling hopeless, helpless or suicidal to call the hotline,” said Fran Karliner, the Long Island Crisis Center’s director of development. “We want people to be aware that 80 percent of people who are thinking about suicide give signs, or let others know in some way, and that’s also why Long Island Crisis Center has a suicide outreach team, so that third parties who think a friend or family member is thinking about suicide can call us 24/7 and we can then do an outreach to the person.”

Jacqueline Shelley, whose son, Daniel, took his own life last December, helped organize the event, and the crowd included many grieving Long Beach students.

The Rev. Eric Mull, of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Long Beach, shared a prayer with the gathering, and said he had been hospitalized after he attempted to commit suicide 20 years ago. “Everyone can be susceptible to that — it’s not a crime, it’s not a scandal, it’s not something evil,” Mull said. “It’s something that people struggle with everywhere, so we need to be there to support people.”

State Sen. Todd Kaminsky joined the speakers at Kennedy Plaza, and challenged the children in the crowd to be kinder to their peers, and the adults to do more to make sure kids get the resources they need. “I’ve been in Long Beach for a long time, and this is one of the darker days,” Kaminsky said. “There’s not a lot we can say; it’s just an awful thing. But how we react to this will say a lot about who we are, and at the bottom of my heart and the bottom of my soul, I believe in Long Beach.”

Brendan previously attended Long Beach Catholic Regional School, and had transferred to Long Beach Middle School this year, according to officials.

Leneisha McNair, 19, a friend of Brendan’s, said after the vigil that she had attended sports camp with him, and that they would often joke around, dance and sing together.

“He is a sweet person, he’s kind-hearted, he’s funny … and he’s a good friend,” Leneisha said. “I was really shocked with what happened, and I started to break down and started crying. I couldn’t sleep at night.”

Brendan’s father, Kevin McAleese, spoke of the dangers of cyberbullying and the impact it can have on a child who is just looking for acceptance.

“Bullying is not the same as it was when we were kids — we didn’t have social media,” McAleese told the crowd. “It would be the equivalent of going out there and putting a billboard of something bad about your kid on every street in the town, and leaving it up indefinitely. The computer is an enemy, and you have to pay attention to what your kids are doing on that computer.”

Many students wept during the ceremony, and afterward, James Hodge, chairman of the Martin Luther King Center’s board of directors, led them in a prayer circle. Long Beach resident Rosanne Buro, a mother of two, distributed candles to the young people, and Long Beach High School wrestling coach Miguel Rodriguez huddled teenagers together as they mourned.

“I told the kids to take this moment of sadness and make it into a positive,” Rodriguez told the Herald. “Now is your chance to go to school tomorrow and let those kids know that are being bullied that they’re not alone, and let the bullies know that their time is over and they have to stop.”

Long Beach Middle School Principal Paul Romanelli said in a letter this week that the district’s Crisis Response Team had developed a plan to help students and staff cope with Brendan’s death — including inviting grieving children to the guidance office on Monday — and would be available in the coming days and weeks. Romanelli added that the school had already begun planning activities to honor Brendan.

“The Long Beach School District is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Brendan Carr,” Schools Superintendent David Weiss said in a statement. “We extend our deepest condolences to Brendan’s family and friends. The school has enacted its crisis plan, and grief counselors will be available to students and staff as long as needed.”

A GoFundMe.com campaign has raised $13,425 for the family to help fund a memorial in Brendan’s name. A separate crowd-funding effort to dedicate a bench along the boardwalk to him has raised $2,720.

“I thank each and every one of you, and my heart goes out to all the children that knew my son, and that my son loved so much,” Carr said. “I’ll never get over this, but with support from the community like this, which is the greatest community in the world, it’s such a blessing to have all of you come here for this moment and to just give us all the love and the prayers that we need to survive each and every day after such a tragedy.”


To contact the Long Island Crisis Center’s 24/7 suicide prevention hotline, call (516) 679-1111. All calls are anonymous and confidential. To chat live with a counselor online, visit http://longislandcrisiscenter.org.