The story of what happened to a 15-year-old girl in South Hadley, Mass., is shocking.

As the Associated Press writes:

"Insults and threats followed 15-year-old Phoebe Prince almost from her first day at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts. Officials say the Irish immigrant was targeted in the halls, library and in vicious text messages.

"Ostracized for having a brief relationship with a popular boy, Phoebe reached her breaking point and hanged herself in January after a day that officials say included being hounded with slurs and pelted with a beverage container on her way home from school."

In the Boston Globe this morning, columnist Kevin Cullen writes about the one "adult in authority" who finally "stepped up for Phoebe Prince."

Cullen says that Betsy Scheibel, the local district attorney, "has restored some faith in the idea that somebody in a position of power there gets it."

And, he writes:

"What Scheibel had to say was as much an indictment of a look-the-other-way, kids-will-be-kids culture that permeated South Hadley High. Whatever we expect students to do in these situations, there were adults at the high school who didn't intervene when they could have, adults who didn't protect Phoebe after Anne Prince told them her daughter was being tormented.

"That inaction, Scheibel said, didn't rise to criminal behavior. But it didn't save Phoebe, either."