On Sept. 9, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick leapt from an abandoned concrete plant and ended her life because of bullying. According to the Huffington Post, as many as 15 girls bullied Rebecca for months sending online messages such as “Why don’t you go kill yourself,” and “drink bleach and die.”

After Rebecca’s death, a 12-year-old and 14-year-old girl were charged with aggravated stalking, a third degree felony.

According to ABC, the arrest came after the 14-year-old posted to Facebook, “Yes ik (I know) I bullied Rebecca nd she killed her self but IDGAF.”

This suicide has gained national attention, and while the 14-year-old’s social media post revealed the situation’s smoke, the lack of parental and community involvement lit this unfortunate fire.Tricia Norman, Rebecca’s mother, knew of her daughter’s bullying at Crystal Lake Middle School where she and the two suspects attended. In response, Norman homeschooled Rebecca to remove her from the bullying at school.

Norman maintains that she didn’t know of her daughter’s continued harassment online. After her daughter’s death, she told the Huffington Post, “I never had a clue. I mean, she told me last year when she was being bullied, but not this year, and I have no idea why.” However, there were plenty of signs.

Police discovered that her screensaver was a picture of Rebecca’s head resting on a railroad track. Her Internet searches included “what is overweight for a 13-year-old girl,” “how to get blades out of razors” and “how many over-the-counter drugs do you take to die.”

Rebecca did not even have her own bedroom to hide the screensaver or online searches. According to the Daily News, Rebecca slept on a recliner and her sister slept on a couch. Granted, no parent can watch their child 24/7, and the mother may not have wanted or even known how to “invade” her daughter’s privacy online.

However, there were physical signs of her depression as well. Sheriff Grady Judd’s CBS interview revealed Rebecca’s three-day hospitalization in December 2012 after slashing her wrists from bullying. Detectives in Lakeland, Fla., the victim’s hometown, found diaries describing her depression and photographs with razor blades lying on her arms.

So how is it possible that Norman missed Rebecca’s downward spiral? According to the Daily News, Norman was unemployed, and Rebecca’s father was not involved in his daughter’s life, leaving Norman as the only household parent.

DePaul Psychology Professor Dr. Karen Budd explained that the “stresses” Norman was experiencing compromised her focus.

“You wonder how capable is the mother of handling her own self, and much more, handling the daughter,” Budd added.

While that may explain Norman’s distractions pulling her away from Rebecca, it neither excuses the role she must play in protecting her daughter nor does it dump all the blame onto her. The parents of the 14-year- old who, according to the Daily News, “bullied anyone who was friends with Rebecca,” are also at fault.

On ABC News, Vivian Vosburg, the suspect’s stepmother who identified herself as the 14-year-old’s mother, said, “I would check her Facebook every time she would get on it,” to which her father added, “If we saw something that was not right, we would’ve addressed it, and it would’ve ended right then.”

Then how was their daughter able to post that remark on Facebook? If the parents were so involved, wouldn’t they have known about their daughter’s online bullying that had been occurring for months?

The Daily News reported that the 14-year-old is “accused of rallying 15 other girls to send hateful electronic messages.” Anything electronic leaves a trail. Vosburg now knows this because she was arrested for child abuse three weeks ago.

Huffington Post reported that members of the community tipped authorities to Facebook videos of Vosburg allegedly beating up a boy. Read that again. “Members of the community.”

People knew that abuse occurred in the alleged bully’s household and yet it took a 12-year-old girl to jump off a building, an unremorseful Facebook post and two juvenile arrests for someone to pick up the phone. Dr. Joseph Ferrari, a social psycologist at DePaul, attributes the lack of community involvement to a 1960s concept called diffusion of responsibility.

Also known as the “bystander effect,” this phenomenon occurs when individuals are less likely to act if others are present.

“Everybody else thinks someone else will call,” Ferrari said.

Parents need to have open communications with their children about the use of social media. They need to set AND enforce rules. We, as a society, have to say something. 15 girls bullied Rebecca for months. 15 households did not say anything.

The community who knew Vivian Vosburg and saw her abusive videos waited to act. This is not a social media issue. It is a societal issue.

As Ferrari said, “We need to stop blaming the victim as a culture. We need to as a community step up. We all have to value life.”