Michael Scott, President of the Chicago School Board, commits suicide

This morning I fired up my PC and found some horrible news about Michael Scott. He had been found dead in the Chicago River near the Merchandise Mart this morning. In February, Scott was re-appointed as President of the Chicago Board of Education. He also held that title from 2001 to 2006

At first via Chicago Breaking News, the report was that Scott was tentatively identified as the body that was pulled out of the Chicago River (excerpted accordingly at The 6th's Blog). It was also reported that his Cadillac was parked in that area and his cell phone was used to trace the late school board president. I could have only hoped that it wasn't him, but the evidence reported in the media seems very clear.

An autopsy reported that Scott has committed suicide. A gun was found near his body as well only confirming the worst about what happened.

Now when I found this out I thought one of two things foul play or suicide. I hoped neither and that he may have been around somewhere, because the other conclusions would be troubling.

Being a public official as Scott has been is certainly a pressure cooker to say the least. Right now a lot of people are speculating on what troubled Scott. Was it corruption in city politics or were there trouble at the city schools that had him depressed?

I get the idea at this moment that we may never know what caused him to take his own life. Hopefully we'll know more in the coming days about what led up to his suicide. It wouldn't surprise me that his family will talk about any depression that he may have had and bring further awareness. It also shouldn't surprise me that he may have talked about some things that may have trouble him about Chicago politics and the behind the scenes issues at the public schools.

My thoughts are with his family for whatever led up to this. I also know seeing some tweets on this subject (largely posted at The 6th's Twitter). There will be a lot of speculation some of it not very truthful or even downright horrible. But I expect that we will know more in the near future or at least I hope so.

BTW, I was working on this post over the weekend regarding a mother's fight to transfer a son to another school. This young man was attending Fenger High School and his mother kept him at home for three weeks, especially in light of incidents that could have been troublesome for him. Well this news puts this on the backburner!