As Masika Bermudez prepares to take her son to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he is to be buried, she is looking for answers to exactly what made her 11-year-old son hang himself in their Atlanta-area apartment last week. Among those questions, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, is whether incessant bullying by his classmates triggered Jaheem Herrera’s desperate response. Did a boy’s charge that Jaheem was gay push him over the edge? Read more.

Army officials struggling to reduce the number of suicides among soldiers want family members to help spot trouble signs, such as depression. At Fort Campbell alone, eight soldiers have killed themselves since the beginning of the year, reports The Associated Press. The number of self-inflicted deaths has grown annually over the past half-decade, coinciding with the elongation and repetition of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, AP reports. This prompted the brass at Campbell to declare a “state of emergency,” and to make suicide prevention training mandatory. “Of the 100 family members and spouses at a meeting at the post Thursday, more than a dozen raised their hands when asked if they knew someone who had committed suicide,” AP reports. “Those family members — often the first to notice problems — received information and training on recognizing signs of suicidal thoughts — and how to get help for the soldiers at the installation along the Tennessee state line.” The base brought in a suicide-prevention program manager, the first on a U.S. military installation, to oversee family support and social work programs on the post and organize efforts to help soldiers struggling after multiple deployments. “They go from being in the combat zone one day to being in their home the next and our trick is to try to help them turn off that mind-set — that they are no longer in a combat situation,” Joe Varney, the suicide-prevention expert, told AP. Now a vital part of the effort to help soldiers cope, Varney tends to thousands of soldiers who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Another part of the coping plan involves partnering soldiers with “Battle Buddies.” In fact, every Fort Campbell soldier is required to carry a card with contact information for another soldier, usually someone they work with frequently, AP reports. Maggie McCoy, whose husband killed himself last year at their home near Fort Campbell, said she’s happy to see the extra training. But she wants better access to mental health treatment for war veterans. “I think the big focus needs to be on properly evaluating soldiers when they come back,” said McCoy, who is also a former soldier.

 The 40-year-old father of five who shot to death his wife and five small children before turning the gun on himself said in a shocking suicide note faxed to a local Los Angeles TV station that the deaths were the fault of his job administrator. Just prior to his bloody rampage, Ervin Antonio Lupoe had just been fired from his job at Kaiser Permanente’s West Los Angeles Medical Center, where he and his wife were technicians.  In his letter, Lupoe said they were being investigated for “misrepresentation of our employment to an outside agency for the benefit to ourselves’s [sic], childcare.” He said the initial interview was held on Dec. 19, and when he reported for work on December 23, “I was told by my administrator … that ‘You should not even have bothered to come to work today. You should have blown your brains out.’” Read the rest here.

Parents: Cops’ story of son’s suicide sounds shaky. The parents of a Mississippi high school star athlete aren’t buying the cops’ story that their son shot himself to death during a traffic stop. They want the NAACP to initiate an independent autopsy to determine how Billey Joe Johnson, of George County High School. The officer who stopped the 17-year-old running back said that he had gone back to his patrol car to do a license check and heard a gunshot. He said he then saw Johnson fall out of the driver side of the car with the shotgun on top of him. “The NAACP, along with the family, have determined that Billey Joe Johnson did not commit suicide,” Curley Clark, the vice president of the NAACP’s Mississippi chapter told The Mississippi Press. “At this point, nothing is concrete until the results of the autopsies have been made known.” Clark said the civil rights group will have the results of a second autopsy done this week.” This incident will not be swept under the rug,” Clark told WLOX. “We are going to make sure all the facts are brought out. We are going to provide the proper assistance necessary to sure no civil rights were violated.” Johnson’s brother, Eddie, said that Billey loved to hunt and would sometimes go early in the morning before heading to school.  That, he said, would explain why his brother had a shotgun in his car. Billy rushed for more than 4,000 yards in his high school career and had scholarship offers from Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Oregon.

Some viewers try to dissuade him while others egg him on. Internet viewers couldn’t tell if a Florida college student, who committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live Webcam, was joking or just faking it. (He had threatened to do it before.) By the time some concerned viewers on the bodybuilding Web site contacted police, Abraham Biggs, 19, had already killed himself.  Soon after, the officers entered the student’s home while the video camera was still rolling and streaming on the Web.  Biggs was a student at Broward College and suffered from what his family said was bipolar disorder. He killed himself in his father’s Pembroke Pines house. Its still not known how many people watched the suicide.

A onetime “American Idol” contestant who was obsessed with judge Paula Abdul, was found dead in a car parked not far from Abdul’s California home Tuesday.  Police identified the woman as 30-year-old Paula Goodspeed, and say her death appears to be a suicide. According to police, Goodspeed, who was a contestant on season five of “American Idol,” has been fixated on Abdul for years. Abdul told The Associated Press that she is “deeply shocked and saddened” at the apparent suicide.   No official cause of death has been determined.

More Americans struggle with medical bills.

Significantly more people are skipping vital care or delaying paying for prescription drugs because they can’t afford them, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s final election 2008 tracking poll.  Paying for health care retains a solid hold on the public’s list of their top economic concerns, according to the poll. About one in three Americans now say their family has had problems paying medical bills in the past year, up from about a quarter who said the same thing two years ago. Almost one in five (18 percent) of Americans report household problems with medical bills amounting to more than $1,000 in the past year. The survey found that medical issues are much more extensive than they were in previous years. Nearly half (47 percent) of the public says someone in their family is not taking their medication, postponing or cutting back on medical care they said they needed in the past year due to the cost of care. For example, just over one-third say they or a family member put off or postponed needed care and three in 10 say they skipped a recommended test or treatment. The numbers show are 7 percent higher than they were in last April’s tracking poll which asks the same question.
Suicides are increasing among Baby Boomers. For the first time in a decade, suicides in the United States are increasing, a new study finds. Suicides have declined for middle-age Blacks and remained stable for Asians and Native Americans, the study found. But, increasingly more middle-aged White women are taking their lives, the researchers found. “This is a group we haven’t had as much focus on in terms of suicide, because the death rates were higher in elderly White males, and there has been a lot of attention to teenagers and young adults,” said lead researcher Susan P. Baker, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “This 40- to -64 age group has been neglected.” Baker said it’s not clear what might be causing the rising suicide rates among middle-aged Whites. “We need to study the individual people who have committed suicide and see what were their living circumstances. Were they depressed, was this impulsive? A lot more specific information is needed,” she told HealthDay. One possible explanation is that doctors may not be paying enough attention to the mental health of their middle-aged White patients to spot the risk of suicide, Baker said.

Hip-hop producer kills himself in an L.A. jail.

The man who became famous for albums like Tupac’s All Eyez on Me has committed suicide, say L.A. County Jail officials. Johnny “Johnny J” Jackson jumped off a tier this past weekend in the facility where he was held after being arrested for a DUI. Other hits Jackson produced include “Knockin’ Boots” by Candyman. Jackson, 39, had a wife and two children.

Pitcher makes mark with win versus Mariners. Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez has the most saves in a season after the Angels’ 5-2 win versus Seattle this past weekend. K-Rod tied Bobby Thigpen’s record of 57 late last week before breaking 58 against the Mariners on Saturday. “I knew it was going to be a really special moment, the way the fans cheered for me when I was coming in,” Rodriguez says. “It was amazing. I haven’t felt like this since we won the World Series.” Having also made his third save in four days, K-Rod credits the deceased grandfather who helped raise him in Venezuela, a nation of many Spanish-speaking Blacks. “He’s with me every day,” adds the pitcher. “I would give up anything to have him right next to me and enjoy this moment. But I’ve got to deal with it.”

Vince Young had gun, thoughts of suicide, report says. Word has surfaced that last week’s brief disappearance by an NFL quarterback was more serious than his team is letting on. Injured Tennessee Titans star Vince Young had shared suicidal thoughts with a team therapist before he left home with a pistol in his possession, according to a police report. The player was found later the same evening after police were contacted, but both Young and Titans coach Jeff Fisher have claimed the incident was exaggerated in media reports. A police statement reveals that Fisher heard from the team therapist shortly after Young’s disappearance. Nashville Lt. Andrea Swisher wrote that the coach told her Young “wants to quit, and he mentioned suicide several times” before leaving home with the gun. He later showed up at the Titans facility and left without incident. Young was booed in the season-opening game during which he threw two interceptions. He was later injured and is expected to be out for at least two weeks.

Experts say it’s time for new approaches to mental health.

A significant increase in mental illness and behavioral problems among young African-American males demonstrates the need for new approaches to treating and better understanding the complex challenges facing these youths, according to a study released Tuesday. Read more about what the report says about the dramatic rise in Black male suicides at BET.con/News.