Mother of Alleged Phoebe Prince Bully Defends Daughter

(March 31) -- The mother of one of the nine Massachusetts teens charged with bullying 15-year-old Phoebe Prince before her suicide is defending her daughter, saying that she may have exchanged harsh words with Prince but Prince was not an innocent bystander.

"Phoebe was calling her names," Angeles Chanon told the Boston Herald, speaking of her daughter, Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, who is charged with stalking and violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. "They're teenagers. They call names."

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Nine students have been accused of harassing Phoebe Prince, 15, before her Jan. 14 suicide.

The district attorney's office on Monday accused eight other students at South Hadley High School with more than just name calling. Among the charges against the teens were statutory rape, violation of civil rights, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly. Prosecutors accuse the students of tormenting Prince "relentlessly" online and in school, often in plain sight of teachers, right up until the day Prince hanged herself in her bedroom on Jan. 14.

Chanon said her daughter cried when she was indicted. "My daughter didn't do any of those things, but I guess we have to fight," Chanon said of the charges. "My daughter's not a violent kid."

The South Hadley Public School System said in a news release it has taken disciplinary action against "an additional small group of students" who "have been removed from high school." Last month, Superintendent Gus Sayer said another group of students had been "removed" but declined to identify them.

While she acknowledges her daughter was once suspended from school for verbally abusing Prince, a new student from Ireland, Chanon insists her daughter never harmed Prince physically or urged her to hurt herself.

"She exchanged a couple of words with her," Chanon told the Herald. "My daughter never fought with her or said, 'Go harm yourself' or 'I hate you.'"

Chanon said she grounded her daughter after she was suspended from school over the conflict that occurred before Prince's death.

"We have strong values, and I don't like injustice, and injustice includes bullying or being racist," the suspect's mother said.

In response to Prince's death and the students' indictment, South Hadley High formed an Anti-Bullying Task Force and will now electronically log all bullying or harassment reports.