Teen death brings counselors to schools

CLOVIS — Police said Thursday evening they were investigating a possible suicide after a high school girl fell to her death from an upper level of the nine-story Hotel Clovis.

NaKiyah Brown was less than two months from her 17th birthday.

“She was just beautiful,” her cousin Akarielah Pleasant told The News on Friday afternoon. “Always willing to make positivity out of a rough moment,” Brown played saxophone in the Clovis High School band, did well in math, had friends in her class, said Pleasant. She didn’t know what brought her to the Hotel Clovis that day nor why the girl she used to babysit would have taken her life.

Whatever the reason, Pleasant said her cousin “didn’t deserve to feel that much pain.”

Clovis Police Capt. Roman Romero said Thursday that police were first dispatched shortly before 4:30 p.m. that day regarding the incident. It was the second reported suicide of a high school student inside a week’s time, although the first one happened outside the public eye.

Bystanders and relations of Brown wept outside the Hotel Clovis on Thursday as police and fire personnel worked on scene. Online, hundreds wrote to express their sympathies and extend prayers.

By Saturday afternoon, a fundraiser for Brown’s funeral expenses had raised over $7,000 from an initial goal of $1,000.

“Nakiyah was the best, simple as that,” said the fundraiser description.

Funeral services are pending through Muffley Funeral Home.

Thursday morning Clovis Municipal Schools announced there would be an increased police presence at all of its schools that day as a precautionary measure for the one-year anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Nobody could anticipate they would have to contend the next school day with a second, more local tragedy, CMS Superintendent Jody Balch told The News.

Balch estimated at least 10 grief counselors were present Friday across Clovis schools and others in Portales, addressing larger groups and then breaking off with smaller groups and individuals as needed.

CMS was busy then throughout the week with counseling services, but the work starts in the first few weeks of the year.

Early in the school year, the district operates a program called Signs of Suicide. Carlton Lewis, a mental health department lead for CMS, said students in grades 6-8, 9 and 11 went through the program this year.

“We try to tell kids that if a student says something to you that doesn’t feel quite right, be sure to tell somebody,” Lewis said. “We understand the kids will often see or hear things the adults don’t always see and hear.”

The kids are encouraged to ACT — Acknowledge the issue, show you Care and find a Trusted adult.

Parents are also given a list of things to look for in their children — asking about death, anger, withdrawal, sadness, fear or difficulty eating and sleeping.

Carlyn Hancock, deputy director of student support services for the district, said other signs include verbal expression of a desire to commit suicide, frequent discussion of death and even trying to give possessions away. Whenever there’s a sign, even an offhanded comment like, “I’d rather die than take this exam,” parents are notified and a staffer investigates.

“We don’t ever know, so we take everything seriously,” Hancock said.

Hancock noted that every CMS campus has a mental health provider on site that can be contacted by a parent.

In a 2016 nationwide study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide was the second-leading cause of death behind unintentional injury for three age groups encompassing children and young adults: ages 10-14, 15-24 and 25-34. Suicide trails increasingly behind other causes of death as the age groups advance and is overall the 10th-ranked cause of death across all ages.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a free service to provide support, information and access to local resources. It is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255.