MANCHESTER, Tenn. (WKRN) — Some in the rural Coffee County community of Manchester are upset at a local business’s decision to paint over a mural for a teenager who died by suicide after being bullied six years ago.
For years, the image of 16-year-old Channing Smith has smiled at drivers on Woodbury Highway off I-24 in Manchester while being lifted up by the hands of the community on the side of the Foothills Crafts building. The mural also included the phrase “YOU ARE NOT ALONE” and the number for the suicide prevention hotline.
Channing, a 16-year-old student at Coffee County Central High School, died by suicide after he was bullied for a leak of explicit text messages he was exchanging with another student, his father, David, told News 2. The nature of the messages and their recipient is less important than the subsequent bullying Channing received, he added, because the outcome is still the same: his son took his own life after feeling like he had no other way out due to the bullying he received…