November 9, 2025 • 13 mins
Mindy and Mikaela speak with Brad Koffel the UA Case and Attorney for the Edell family about bringing awareness to a silent killer of teens- suicide.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brad Callful with Florida Defense is joining us now on
a very important topic and something that's going on currently
in central Ohio. And it does involve suicide of a teenager.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It does, and the Upper Arlington community, but it really
is something that applies to all of us who have
teens or kids that are going to be in our lives.
So Brad, thank you so much for joining us today.
I know this has been a topic around the community,
but you're shedding some light on it for us and
for others well.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
For sure, any time we have an opportunity to disclose
what we're learning more and more about science and the
teen mind, parents are ill equipped to kind of understand
unless they're paying attention to this all the time. And
I'll get the benefit of my law practice. I have
(00:48):
an opportunity to represent a lot of teens, young adults
and their families and have learned learn quite a bit.
So I'm glad to be on So what can.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You tell us about this case? Set it up for
the listener, because maybe someone has even heard of what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, you know, I'll spend a moment on that and
then kind of pivot to the greater the broader horizon.
Here very scary situation. A middle schooler in Upper Earlington
with no prior mental illness, no behavioral issues, and may
(01:23):
have experienced some bullying, nothing that apparently rose to the
level where the school district felt obligated under existing state
law to notify the parents, and the parents were not
notified that there may have been some bulling. There then
came a sudden discipline issue where the school called parents
(01:52):
and said, hey, your son may be getting disciplined for something.
And it was kind of it was kind of a
kind of a vague amount of information, but it wasn't
anything that caused mom and dad to think that they
needed to head over urgently over to the school and
(02:14):
talk to them some more like a teen prank. So
it was it was kind of set aside and noted
and set aside. And then a short time later, you know,
within a matter of a few hours of their son
had taken his life. After that, the news rippled through
(02:38):
our community, and then it picked up steam, Rumors took over,
gossip took over, And so a number of weeks have
passed and the parents have now asked my law firm
to get into this, and and and a find out
you know, well, shouldn't if my son was, if our
(03:01):
son was being bullied, shouldn't the school have called us,
Brad and told us that. And the answer that is
now it has to rise to a very high level,
to the point where the school needs to make changes
inside the setting for the student before there's a duty
to notify the parents. And that's one thing that we're
(03:24):
trying to raise awareness to parents and lawmakers to maybe
consider a law change to lower the burden the hurdle
rather before schools need to notify the parents that their
son or daughter may be subject to bullying and then
give them a toolkit, you know, here's some information on
how to address this with your kid. And the second
(03:46):
thing is to find out if they were bullied, you
know who, when, why, and where their checkpoints that were
neglected by the school or others that should have been
acted on.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I think I'm shocked, Brad, that it doesn't at this
point by law rise to a reporting level back to parents.
I mean, I'm familiar with that obviously with college, but
I just figured, given the environment that we live in
in twenty twenty five, if you have something serious going
on in middle school or high school with another student
(04:24):
and there's bullying and people are aware of it, that
parents would hear about it. I thought it was a
non starter.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So this is the nuance and this is the driving
factor at least for me in my law firm, and
why we're trying to raise more awareness. Let's first of all,
talk about the spike in adolescent suicide in the last decade.
When an adolescent mind overheats and suicide becomes in the moment,
(04:52):
the only option. It's we're learning more and more that
it's not as a result of chronic hopelessness. It's not
chronic helplessness. It's not the the isolated kid who is
miserable what psychologists and psychiatrists referred to. It is more
of a storm that hits very quickly, and there's it's
(05:19):
not just a mood swing. So if you take the
adolescent mind, the amygdala is the emotion reaction, that part
of the brain is full gas pedal, the prefrontal cortex,
the brake pedal is still years away from being fully developed.
(05:39):
So you take the normal adolescent brain. Then you add
in what's very common anymore, add ADHD. We're learning more
about trauma and trauma history boys and girls. Uh, trauma
doesn't need to be being a sexual assault victim or
sexual assault survivor. There are other forms of trauma that
can impact the body. The central nervous system, and that
(06:03):
adolescent brain has a very difficult time toggling back and
forth between feeling content and feeling overwhelmed. You then factor
in sleep deprivation, and then if you've got a pup
who's sensitive to life already, you know, kind of a
creative sensitive type of person, then you factor in social
(06:26):
media everything that we might as adults, we could handle
some rejection or some humiliation, or some sudden stress when
you add those life that life event into that adolescent
mind with add or some trauma history or some sleep depth,
(06:47):
or a hyper sensitive kid in the fear of social
media and everything being magnified, that sudden stress in the mind.
In the brain generates hormones, cortisol, adrenaline floods the system.
The pain is instantly overwhelmed. They're looking at life through
(07:08):
a straw. And if people, if anyone's had a panic
attack or an anxiety attack, you start to disassociate. You know,
your brain, it feels broken, something's not right. But for
the adolescent, I've ruined everything and their future disappears, so
that mismatch in the brain where they are they're trying
(07:29):
to navigate this very very modern world and their central
nervous system. And I submit for adults too, our central
nervous systems have not caught up to the advancements of technology,
the amount of sensory input to our bodies. And up Barlington,
(07:50):
we live right over an airport highway. All the planes
coming in from the west, they fly right over Up
Barlington every seven minutes. You've got a jet going over.
You've got traffic, You've got several fire stations that are
neighborhood and they're always buzzing by busy streets. The cell
phones are always on. Parents and who are trying to
(08:12):
be supportive and not neglectful. They ask questions, they pepper,
they project onto the kids what they think their kids
ought to be doing in these aveluts and brains. They
just don't get quiet, they don't get solitude, they don't
get their ability to just rest and have that cooling effect.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Brad. Obviously, suicide has been around for years, for decades.
It's something that will most likely never go away. It
does seem more prevalent these days though, in the teenage years,
especially for all the reasons that you've just given us.
I just looked up a stat and in the United States,
this was just last year, there were seven thousand, one
(08:55):
hundred and twenty four deaths by suicide among people ten
years old to twenty four. You're talking about a ten
year old taking their life. Seven six fifteen percent of
all suicides are in that age group ten to twenty four.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Number two cause of death behind accidents, which includes car accidents.
So the number two cause of death for our ten
to twenty four year olds is their central nervous system.
Mind can't keep up with modern contemporary life. And I
think I'm going to say it again. I think it's
so important that kids get enough sleep, that there's tech detox.
(09:41):
There's got to be time away from the constant interruption
of their devices, learning more and more about trauma and
trauma and formed therapy. Kids on add with ADD or ADHD,
on their meds. Parents need to learn a lot. They
(10:02):
need to learn a lot. Part A about the tremendous
vulnerabilities associated with all teens, not the teens that are
struggling with chronic depression or anxiety. Those aren't necessarily the
ones that are causing the spike in the suicide. It's
the teens like Mike Carter, who I'm currently representing his family,
(10:25):
that showed no signs that one would conventionally think as
a suicide risk. And B parents need to learn and
educators and administrators and friends and friends, parents and coaches
need to understand the basics of deep say DBT mindfulness,
(10:47):
being able to separate the feeling and the emotion and
the thought from action. And there's a tremendous under education
with parents. I submit it's with schools as well well.
And you if there's if there's a youngster that appears
to be being bullied, see something, say say something. Yeah, right,
(11:12):
if you sense it, let the parents know right now.
Our schools have no school in Ohio has an affirmative
duty to notify parents that their son or daughter may
just have experienced an acute moment of distress that they
are going to have a very difficult time handling. I
(11:33):
have two parents they notified.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I have two questions for you, Brad, before we're getting
close to break, so I want to know what happens
next for you In this case, but I also want
you to define bullying can take on many forms and
is not just kid to kid. So can you talk
a little bit about both of those things, what's next
and what bullying can look like.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Adults need to understand that our words have consequences, and
you need to be especially the older generation. We really
we you know, we really need to be very careful
about what we say to each other and their kids.
And words aren't always protected free speech, words aren't always harmless.
(12:22):
Many times you don't know who your your listener is,
and what may not classify as classic bullying may still
be an event that, in the mind of a teen
causes that mental storm. So you need to be very
(12:42):
very careful about what you say, how you say it
when you talk to anybody, anybody, but especially teens who
are their minds and brains are just not ripe enough
to handle. And God forbid, it actually comes from a coach,
a teacher, another parent in the community. The things that
(13:04):
I hear parents say from the stands onto the field
about other players, I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah, you just
can't talk like that. We need My grandmother would say,
you mustn't do that. We need to bring the word
mustn't back into American society.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Brad. We are up against the break, but we so
appreciate your time today. You really made things clear for us,
and please give the family our best. Hopefully they're doing okay,
as good as you could be in this type of
a situation, but we do appreciate you. Thanks so much,
Brad Koffel for the defense.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, thanks Brad.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
This is what matters on six' TEN wtv in
Brad Callful with Florida Defense is joining us now on
a very important topic and something that's going on currently
in central Ohio. And it does involve suicide of a teenager.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It does, and the Upper Arlington community, but it really
is something that applies to all of us who have
teens or kids that are going to be in our lives.
So Brad, thank you so much for joining us today.
I know this has been a topic around the community,
but you're shedding some light on it for us and
for others well.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
For sure, any time we have an opportunity to disclose
what we're learning more and more about science and the
teen mind, parents are ill equipped to kind of understand
unless they're paying attention to this all the time. And
I'll get the benefit of my law practice. I have
(00:48):
an opportunity to represent a lot of teens, young adults
and their families and have learned learn quite a bit.
So I'm glad to be on So what can.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
You tell us about this case? Set it up for
the listener, because maybe someone has even heard of what's
going on.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Yeah, you know, I'll spend a moment on that and
then kind of pivot to the greater the broader horizon.
Here very scary situation. A middle schooler in Upper Earlington
with no prior mental illness, no behavioral issues, and may
(01:23):
have experienced some bullying, nothing that apparently rose to the
level where the school district felt obligated under existing state
law to notify the parents, and the parents were not
notified that there may have been some bulling. There then
came a sudden discipline issue where the school called parents
(01:52):
and said, hey, your son may be getting disciplined for something.
And it was kind of it was kind of a
kind of a vague amount of information, but it wasn't
anything that caused mom and dad to think that they
needed to head over urgently over to the school and
(02:14):
talk to them some more like a teen prank. So
it was it was kind of set aside and noted
and set aside. And then a short time later, you know,
within a matter of a few hours of their son
had taken his life. After that, the news rippled through
(02:38):
our community, and then it picked up steam, Rumors took over,
gossip took over, And so a number of weeks have
passed and the parents have now asked my law firm
to get into this, and and and a find out
you know, well, shouldn't if my son was, if our
(03:01):
son was being bullied, shouldn't the school have called us,
Brad and told us that. And the answer that is
now it has to rise to a very high level,
to the point where the school needs to make changes
inside the setting for the student before there's a duty
to notify the parents. And that's one thing that we're
(03:24):
trying to raise awareness to parents and lawmakers to maybe
consider a law change to lower the burden the hurdle
rather before schools need to notify the parents that their
son or daughter may be subject to bullying and then
give them a toolkit, you know, here's some information on
how to address this with your kid. And the second
(03:46):
thing is to find out if they were bullied, you
know who, when, why, and where their checkpoints that were
neglected by the school or others that should have been
acted on.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I think I'm shocked, Brad, that it doesn't at this
point by law rise to a reporting level back to parents.
I mean, I'm familiar with that obviously with college, but
I just figured, given the environment that we live in
in twenty twenty five, if you have something serious going
on in middle school or high school with another student
(04:24):
and there's bullying and people are aware of it, that
parents would hear about it. I thought it was a
non starter.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So this is the nuance and this is the driving
factor at least for me in my law firm, and
why we're trying to raise more awareness. Let's first of all,
talk about the spike in adolescent suicide in the last decade.
When an adolescent mind overheats and suicide becomes in the moment,
(04:52):
the only option. It's we're learning more and more that
it's not as a result of chronic hopelessness. It's not
chronic helplessness. It's not the the isolated kid who is
miserable what psychologists and psychiatrists referred to. It is more
of a storm that hits very quickly, and there's it's
(05:19):
not just a mood swing. So if you take the
adolescent mind, the amygdala is the emotion reaction, that part
of the brain is full gas pedal, the prefrontal cortex,
the brake pedal is still years away from being fully developed.
(05:39):
So you take the normal adolescent brain. Then you add
in what's very common anymore, add ADHD. We're learning more
about trauma and trauma history boys and girls. Uh, trauma
doesn't need to be being a sexual assault victim or
sexual assault survivor. There are other forms of trauma that
can impact the body. The central nervous system, and that
(06:03):
adolescent brain has a very difficult time toggling back and
forth between feeling content and feeling overwhelmed. You then factor
in sleep deprivation, and then if you've got a pup
who's sensitive to life already, you know, kind of a
creative sensitive type of person, then you factor in social
(06:26):
media everything that we might as adults, we could handle
some rejection or some humiliation, or some sudden stress when
you add those life that life event into that adolescent
mind with add or some trauma history or some sleep depth,
(06:47):
or a hyper sensitive kid in the fear of social
media and everything being magnified, that sudden stress in the mind.
In the brain generates hormones, cortisol, adrenaline floods the system.
The pain is instantly overwhelmed. They're looking at life through
(07:08):
a straw. And if people, if anyone's had a panic
attack or an anxiety attack, you start to disassociate. You know,
your brain, it feels broken, something's not right. But for
the adolescent, I've ruined everything and their future disappears, so
that mismatch in the brain where they are they're trying
(07:29):
to navigate this very very modern world and their central
nervous system. And I submit for adults too, our central
nervous systems have not caught up to the advancements of technology,
the amount of sensory input to our bodies. And up Barlington,
(07:50):
we live right over an airport highway. All the planes
coming in from the west, they fly right over Up
Barlington every seven minutes. You've got a jet going over.
You've got traffic, You've got several fire stations that are
neighborhood and they're always buzzing by busy streets. The cell
phones are always on. Parents and who are trying to
(08:12):
be supportive and not neglectful. They ask questions, they pepper,
they project onto the kids what they think their kids
ought to be doing in these aveluts and brains. They
just don't get quiet, they don't get solitude, they don't
get their ability to just rest and have that cooling effect.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Brad. Obviously, suicide has been around for years, for decades.
It's something that will most likely never go away. It
does seem more prevalent these days though, in the teenage years,
especially for all the reasons that you've just given us.
I just looked up a stat and in the United States,
this was just last year, there were seven thousand, one
(08:55):
hundred and twenty four deaths by suicide among people ten
years old to twenty four. You're talking about a ten
year old taking their life. Seven six fifteen percent of
all suicides are in that age group ten to twenty four.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Number two cause of death behind accidents, which includes car accidents.
So the number two cause of death for our ten
to twenty four year olds is their central nervous system.
Mind can't keep up with modern contemporary life. And I
think I'm going to say it again. I think it's
so important that kids get enough sleep, that there's tech detox.
(09:41):
There's got to be time away from the constant interruption
of their devices, learning more and more about trauma and
trauma and formed therapy. Kids on add with ADD or ADHD,
on their meds. Parents need to learn a lot. They
(10:02):
need to learn a lot. Part A about the tremendous
vulnerabilities associated with all teens, not the teens that are
struggling with chronic depression or anxiety. Those aren't necessarily the
ones that are causing the spike in the suicide. It's
the teens like Mike Carter, who I'm currently representing his family,
(10:25):
that showed no signs that one would conventionally think as
a suicide risk. And B parents need to learn and
educators and administrators and friends and friends, parents and coaches
need to understand the basics of deep say DBT mindfulness,
(10:47):
being able to separate the feeling and the emotion and
the thought from action. And there's a tremendous under education
with parents. I submit it's with schools as well well.
And you if there's if there's a youngster that appears
to be being bullied, see something, say say something. Yeah, right,
(11:12):
if you sense it, let the parents know right now.
Our schools have no school in Ohio has an affirmative
duty to notify parents that their son or daughter may
just have experienced an acute moment of distress that they
are going to have a very difficult time handling. I
(11:33):
have two parents they notified.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I have two questions for you, Brad, before we're getting
close to break, so I want to know what happens
next for you In this case, but I also want
you to define bullying can take on many forms and
is not just kid to kid. So can you talk
a little bit about both of those things, what's next
and what bullying can look like.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Adults need to understand that our words have consequences, and
you need to be especially the older generation. We really
we you know, we really need to be very careful
about what we say to each other and their kids.
And words aren't always protected free speech, words aren't always harmless.
(12:22):
Many times you don't know who your your listener is,
and what may not classify as classic bullying may still
be an event that, in the mind of a teen
causes that mental storm. So you need to be very
(12:42):
very careful about what you say, how you say it
when you talk to anybody, anybody, but especially teens who
are their minds and brains are just not ripe enough
to handle. And God forbid, it actually comes from a coach,
a teacher, another parent in the community. The things that
(13:04):
I hear parents say from the stands onto the field
about other players, I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah, you just
can't talk like that. We need My grandmother would say,
you mustn't do that. We need to bring the word
mustn't back into American society.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Brad. We are up against the break, but we so
appreciate your time today. You really made things clear for us,
and please give the family our best. Hopefully they're doing okay,
as good as you could be in this type of
a situation, but we do appreciate you. Thanks so much,
Brad Koffel for the defense.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, thanks Brad.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
This is what matters on six' TEN wtv in
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