US mother sues gov't for son's suicide during lockdown

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - An American mother of a teenager who committed suicide during the coronavirus pandemic is suing the Illinois governor, claiming her son "died because of COVID isolation."

Lisa Mara Moore told Fox News' The Faulkner Focus program on Thursday that she believes "100%" that the lockdown changed his son Trevor Till who committed suicide in October. He was hoping to go to the state championships for pole vaulting but could not because of coronavirus restrictions.

Then Moore joined the parents of three other student-athletes to sue Governor J.B. Pritzker for canceling the winter high school sports season. They accused Pritzker of causing severe emotional and physical harm to their children with these restrictions, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The lawsuit claimed the cancellation "is an unconstitutional violation of the Plaintiffs’ right to equal protection under the Constitution of the State of Illinois."

"Trevor was devastated that he didn’t have his senior year track and pole vaulting season" and that ‘‘the final blow was when winter sports were canceled. Trevor committed suicide on October 21, 2020, a proximate cause of which was Governor Pritzker’s restrictions on high school sports programs," the lawsuit reportedly said.

Moore, the lead plaintiff, said about her son that he "truly enjoyed being at school," and added: "That's where his heart and soul was."

The mother stressed that she noticed changes in Trevor during the lockdown.

"He's a teenage boy. They need their friends. They need the interaction. They need the socialization," she told Faulkner. "He was that student in the classroom that raised his hand, got the conversations going. Doing that from Zoom, doing that from his bedroom, it was not the same feeling for him."

"I saw him started to get just a little depressed," Moore concluded.

Suicidal thoughts in the US have sharply increased during the pandemic as the country continues to be the worst-hit, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One in four, 25.5%, young adults said they considered suicide seriously between last July-August due to pandemic, rising from 2008's 10.7%. Also, the percentage in all ages rose from 4.3% to 11%.

The US has more than 25.7 million COVID-19 cases and over 433,200 virus-related fatalities, according to a running tally of Johns Hopkins University.