Editor's note: If you or a loved one need help, resources are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call or text 988, chat online or start a conversation with someone you trust.
—
The mother of a Liberty North student who died by suicide in March has sued the school district, the school’s administration, two counselors and two teachers in Clay County Circuit Court.
Logan LeBlanc’s mother, Kristi Rice, alleges in a petition for damages filed August 25 that Liberty North failed to abide by its own policies and didn’t protect LeBlanc from repeated bullying at school, which exacerbated his declining mental health in the 18 months before his death.
“Liberty’s ‘policy’ is nothing more than unenforced words on paper because Logan LeBlanc’s health, safety and welfare suffered when he was within the walls of Liberty North for a year and a half before committing suicide,” the 21-page court filing said.
The district’s attorneys have yet to respond to the court filing, but a Liberty Public Schools spokesperson provided a statement to KSHB 41 News:
First and foremost, the loss of a member of our school community is the ultimate tragedy, and our thoughts continue to be with the family and friends of this young person that was lost too soon.
Liberty Public Schools takes the health, safety, and welfare of all of our students seriously, and we have Board policies in place that address this. Our school teams work tirelessly to ensure our students have resources readily available if in need of extra support.
Due to pending litigation, we are extremely limited in what we can share additionally at this time. We will have no further comment regarding this matter, and will instead let the legal process take place.
According to the petition, an unidentified group of students nicknamed the “Mercenaries” targeted LeBlanc because of his size and weight, haircut and political opinions.
The filing alleges that LeBlanc told a Spanish teacher in September 2021 that he was unhappy and didn’t like being at Liberty North, but that the school didn’t follow its policy to investigate subsequent bullying complaints.
Rice said she sought medical care for LeBlanc, who was diagnosed with depression, and relayed the diagnosis to the school.
Liberty North allowed LeBlanc to visit with a counselor when needed, but “did not invoke any suicide prevention policies for Logan,” according to the court filing.
As the situation escalated, LeBlanc’s grandfather spoke with members of Liberty North’s administration on multiple occasions about efforts to intervene on LeBlanc’s behalf and stop the bullying.
Despite the complaints, the court filing alleges that Liberty North never wrote up a report or conducted an investigation into the bullying as required by district policy.
LeBlanc reached out to a second teacher in November 2021, telling his math teacher that “there are times suicide has crossed my mind.”
The school alerted Rice about the message he sent, but again failed to invoke required suicide-prevention policies and procedures, according to the court filing.
The bullying escalated to include physical altercations with Mercenaries in the school bathrooms, which led to LeBlanc being suspended twice for fighting at school his freshman year.
“Despite the complaints, no bullying reports were drafted and no safety plan to protect Logan was ever created or enacted,” the petition said. “Instead, the District chose to blame Logan for being the victim of the Mercenaries’ unprovoked attacks.”
LeBlanc took to hiding in corners of the cafeteria, quit the football team after playing his freshman year, and his grades plummeted.
Early in his sophomore year, LeBlanc was suspended again for a fight on school grounds after a non-student entered the campus and harassed him, the court filing said.
“Punishing Logan for being unable to protect himself on school grounds from not only the school’s students, but uninvited troublemakers, may have extinguished Logan’s hope for protection and the ability to be a normal student,” the petition said.
LeBlanc tried out for the baseball team in February 2023, a goal he set for himself the previous summer after deciding to quit football, but he was cut in early March 2023.
Three days later, LeBlanc hung himself. He died March 11, 2023, at the hospital after being declared brain dead.
“Despite claiming it cares about student’s mental health and will educate all employees and students on signs of mental distress and suicidal ideations, the District did its best to sweep this under the rug,” the petition said.
The court filing said the district still hasn’t taken action against the Mercenaries, even after LeBlanc’s death, which led another student targeted by their bullying to attempt suicide last May.
LeBlanc’s family is seeking damages for the Liberty Public Schools' alleged negligent supervision resulting in wrongful death and breach of fiduciary duty to protect him while at school.
—
