Halligan did not tell his parents about this. Summer 2003 Īccording to his father and news reports, during the summer of 2003, Halligan spent much of his time online, particularly on AIM and other instant messaging services. After Halligan told the bully about an embarrassing examination required after he had stomach pains, he learned that the bully misused the story to spread a rumor that Halligan was gay. The two boys were friends for a short amount of time.
His parents warned him to be careful about the friendship, because the bully had been harassing him for a long time. Toward the end of 7th grade, Halligan told his father that he and the bully had become friends. Halligan's father said that he was proud of his son for sticking up for himself.
In February 2003, Halligan had a fight with a bully, which was broken up by the assistant principal after that, the bully stopped bothering him. After he had learned to defend himself, his father told him not to pick fights at school, but said that if any student ever touched him aggressively, Halligan had his father's permission to defend himself. After Christmas, Halligan and his father developed a routine of practicing downstairs in the basement for 2 hours every night.
At first, his father wanted to go to the school principal and sort things out, but Halligan insisted that he wanted to learn how to fight, believing that complaining to the school about the boys would make things worse. He asked for a Tae Bo eggs Kick Boxing set for Christmas in order to learn how to defend himself. In December 2002, Halligan told his father that the bullying had started again. After that he moved up to middle school, where the bullying continued when Halligan was in 7th grade. The family later said in a short documentary that Halligan enrolled in counseling, with little success. His father said that when Halligan told him he was being picked on, his initial response was to ignore the boys, as they were just bullying him with words. When Halligan was in 5th grade, he started to suffer bullying at the hands of a group of students at his school because of his learning disorder, his passion for music (drums and guitar), and his love for drama. Although he overcame those difficulties by the fourth grade, "He still struggled school was never easy to him, but he always showed up with a smile on his face, eager to do his best," said his father. He was described by his father as a "gentle, very sensitive soul," who experienced some developmental delays affecting speech and physical coordination in his early school years. His family moved to Essex Junction, Vermont, where Halligan attended Hiawatha Elementary School and, later, Albert D. Halligan was born on December 18, 1989, in Poughkeepsie, New York, the son of John P.
Halligan, a former IBM engineer, subsequently lobbied for laws to be passed in Vermont to improve how schools address bullying and suicide prevention. According to the Associated Press, Halligan was repeatedly sent homophobic instant messages, and was "threatened, taunted and insulted incessantly". Ryan Patrick Halligan (Decem– October 7, 2003) was an American student who died by suicide at the age of 13 after being bullied by his classmates in person and cyber-bullying online. Holy Family Cemetery, Essex Junction, Vermont, U.S.