Response to news story on Maxwell

Now, I'll let you in on some information:

I go to Independence High School. In fact, I am a Junior there. I am also considered by Maxwell as his best friend, and I visited him regularly when he stopped going to high school, occasionally getting bits and pieces of what goes on in his life.
Now, I'll start off by saying the schools of Independence are hellholes. You can't escape them, and if you don't know how to stand up to the crap they throw at you, I guarantee you that every single day you go there you will be very miserable. I learned that lesson in middle school.
Back in middle school, I was bullied constantly. Of course, I lacked social skills. I didn't know how to deal with people, and because of that, I tried to be the center of the attention all the time, just so people could notice me. I would do anything, I would jump up on tables and shout, whatnot, just as long as people noticed me. Simply put, I was doing stupid things so I could be popular. As expected, that backfired, and instead of being one of the "popular" kids (although you can say that in a way I was), I was everyone's human playtoy. Some would throw things at me, beat me up, stab me with pencils (that happened only once, I still have the pencil-mark on my arm), whatever, just as long as they got a good laugh out of it. Now, I also had anger issues, so every time someone would do such a thing, I would start throwing fits, etc, until I would get in trouble and sent to the office. When I was in the vice-principal's office, I tried to tell them, that I threw a fit because they were doing this and that to me, but those words fell on deaf ears. They simply didn't care. Only I got in trouble, and the bullies just kept going, nonstop.
Now, let's skip ahead a few months. After those few months, I tried to do something different. Rather than doing my things to get attention and seem "cool", I watched and learned what other kids have been doing, and thus, attempted doing it. To my dismay, that didn't work, as I was already classified as a loser by everybody, so the bullying got worse and worse. I kept wondering to myself, what am I doing wrong? Why won't these people accept me?
A few more months passed. I was in 7th grade then. The bullying didn't stop, and I started having suicidal thoughts, I didn't want to go to school, and I started going to the councelor's office regularly. Eventually, the councelor I talked to suggested that I go to an anti-bullying program that the school provided, that *should* help with dealing with bullies. Of course, I took up on the offer. After a few weeks in the program, I quit.
Why? Because it didn't work. All it was was some generic "just walk away" BS that the school told me to do, without actually dealing with the bullies. They showed me these absolutely cheesy and retarded videos of completely unrealistic bullying situations where the kid being bullied responded to bullies with responses that were embarrassing just to hear. But, I decided to try it anyway.
Now, I absolutely refused to do some thing they wanted me to do (e.g. responding to bullies with those cheesy responses), but I did do my best to walk away from the situation. Now, if you have been bullied before, you should know that this method rarely, if ever works, once it's severe enough. For example, there was this bully that wouldn't stop bugging me, and just kept following me around, pushing me, etc., and I did my best not to respond, and to just walk away. I did that for a few days, but it still persisted. In fact, it got worse. That bully, instead of ceasing to bully me, decided to turn up the intensity and start punching me, etc. every time he saw me, and one time, he even followed me home, and attempted to beat me up. I told the principals, I told the teachers, I told the vice-principals, and all they did was ask the kids around, get the response "nuh-uh he's lying", and didn't do anything further. That's when I realized -- they don't care if I get bullied. They just want to show the public that they are "doing" something about it, so it would seem okay by the public.
Fast forward some more. I'm a Freshman in high school now. I learned most of the concepts, and I stopped seeking attention, and I have gotten myself up the food chain some (I call it a food chain because it is a food chain: kids that are more popular can boss around the kids on a lower tier without repercussions) just enough so I didn't get bullied, and I was holding up pretty well. Did this hell called school end? No, of course not. Bullying took on a new form: drama. I consider it an indirect form of bullying, because people still hurt and ruin other people's lives in the process. It happened around high school daily. You could expect for drama to always be there in my school in one form or another. Well, I was trying to make some friends (and girlfriends) in the process, and I got caught all up in it. I would explain what happened, but that would take up more than half this story, so I'll skip it.
Long story short, I was a victim of bullying once, and then learned to get away from it by myself. Some others aren't as lucky.

Now, this is where Maxwell's story comes in parallel -- he was just like me in many ways. He didn't know how to socialize with other people, and tried to be the center of attention all the time by being loud and whatnot, and thus, you can guess what happened to him. Now, the only difference in this bullying situation is that some kids did like him, but there were people that bullied him. And those people were some popular girls that were seniors. I guess you can say that they led a cult of other weak-spirited girls who tried to look acceptable in the eyes of those popular girls, who did everything the popular girls did. Those popular girls didn't stop bullying Maxwell, calling him bad things behind his back, etc. Now, I don't know the full story after here, but I'll tell you everything I know and everything others have told me.

(information in brackets may be inaccurate from here on)
[Maxwell and his parents tried to get the principals and the teachers to do something about this bullying issue, but they haven't done much, if anything.] Somewhere along the line, Maxwell joined this thing called Friends R Us, where it was supposed to be a help group for those that are being oppressed by the bullies and having problems getting along with people. Maxwell, stopped going to it [almost immediately], because it turns out, that one of the students (yes, students. Probably something about relating to them and whatnot) was one of the bullies.
Further on, things got bad enough that Maxwell dropped out of school. His parents told me that he wouldn't stop talking about them, they traumatized him so much. He even attempted suicide because of it. But after Maxwell dropped out of school, you could expect things to get better.
They didn't. Bullying outside of school didn't stop. There was once a time (in fact, I believe it was a few months ago) where Maxwell was growing a giant pumpkin [for a state fair], and it was growing in his yard. He couldn't stop thinking about it, as it was really important to him. He spent lots of time taking care of it, and as a result, it started growing into a pretty sizeable pumpkin. But, as it so happened, someone (presumed some teens) walked up to his yard, and cut off the pumpkin, and [went to the sidewalk] and smashed it. Maxwell was devastated, he spent so much time on it. Also, Maxwell couldn't get over the kids that bullied him back in high school, he just wasn't capable to let it go. Over this period of time from a [few months] before he left IHS to the time his pumpkin was smashed, his autism developed into something even more serious, and he was put on [more heavy] medication. Maxwell that I visited from time to time wasn't the Maxwell that I knew back in school.
Afterwards, after some more things happening to him (him attending ICC, etc), and because of all the stress in his personal life, he snapped, and hung himself without warning. He hung himself a few days after I visited him, and I didn't see anything different about him, as he didn't act any different. Maybe he was planning it all along, as he couldn't take it all, maybe he did it because of X, but although bullying may not have been a direct cause of his suicide, it sure as hell was one big influence on his decision.

After he died, I kept attending school of course, but his name wasn't mentioned during announcements. Ever. I found that ironic, because they have been talking about Bo and Steven (classmates of mine that died from [being sucked in a river]), but never Maxwell.
Some even attempted to get sympathy from the principal. What was his response? "He did it to himself." I have NEVER heard such a heartless thing being said from anyone about a kid that didn't want to do any harm. In fact, they have considered Maxwell a THREAT because he "sexually harassed" other girls! I myself have no proof of it, but I call bullshit, as I know Maxwell wasn't a person to do such a thing, and I have many people to back me up on that fact. He may have said strange things, but that was only because he learned it from other people. Those people taught him to talk in a way that many people would consider crude. It wasn't his fault he was misdirected in such a way, he lacked the social skills to know better.

Now you know my view on this, which is why I conclude that the school doesn't care. They just seem to care, and all Schmidt, Shaw, and the Wacky Clowns of USD 446 are doing is covering their asses.