Three teens arrested for ‘cyber stalking’
Students booked with cyber stalking
Three Loranger High School students were arrested for cyber stalking after a week-long investigation. 18 year-old Joseph Sanchez and a 14 year-old boy created a website with “bloodthirsty lyrics” and a list of “preppies”. A 15 year-old girl allegedly assumed a male identity on the internet and harassed a male student.
The three Loranger High students were issued temporary suspensions before classes resumed Monday, and a due-process hearing is scheduled Friday to determine whether they should be expelled for the remainder of the school year, said Cindy Benitez, spokeswoman for the Tangipahoa Parish School System.
The activities were discovered over the Christmas break were not initiated at the school. The suspensions and possible expulsions are contrary to the school code and represent another scholastic long-arm intrusion into the private lives of students.
A person convicted of the crime of cyber stalking faces a penalty of up to a year in jail, deputies said.
The school handbook has a detailed discipline system. The closest listed offense is “threatening” and this lists a week long suspension (the minimum time this automatic suspension will be in effect) as the punishment for a 4th offense. ‘Threatening’ has no provision for expulsion in the discipline policy.
Even the Zero Tolerance to Violence Policy does not call for an expulsion until the second actual instance of physical violence.
These three students were not under the jurisdiction of the school when they acted. The school is punishing them for something they did in their own free time at their homes. The school has issued arbitrary punishments that contradict their own written policies. These arbitrary punishments also go well beyond those specified even for more serious offenses.
This appears to be a case of an administration striking out blindly because they do not understand their own policies, their own just limits or even what actually occurred.
The kids better lawyer up.
Revolution. Revolt. Rise up in the cafeterias and stab them with your plastic forks. Or may be do somthing a little less drastic first, but keep that on the back burner.
laweyer up?they are the reason all this crap is happening…everyone seem to be afraid of lawsuits.
You don’t think that people who are charged with a crime should hire a lawyer?
It’s not the lawyers that are causing the problems per se, it’s the TORT lawyers always looking for a big scoop of cash topped with a little fame.
And the plaintiffs/litigants (depending on the size) wanting an even bigger slice.
First of all, Who, or what, is causing the problem is less important than solving the problem…which is the dictatorial, totalitarianistic stance the school authorities are taking towards things that are and/or should be beyond their jurisdiction.
Ask yourself this question. If you were charged with a jay-walking offence in your town, which you may decide to fight or not, do you think another town should be allowed to impose a penalty on you because they have a zero tolerance policy regarding jay-walking in their town?
Isn’t that, effectively, what the school administration is doing in this case ?
As we’ve seen, in the minds of school administrators there are no exceptions to the zero tolerence policy rules and their interpretation of them (unless, of course, it’s regarding a fellow teacher or administrator), and their word is final. In fact, they seem to believe their decisions take precedence over the laws of the land.
Isn’t it time to take action against the decision makers in our school system who have replaced common sense with non-thinking, doctrinaire policies that allow them to impose their will on any student they decide to target?
If it means going to court, so be it.
Everytime I read about the concern for bullying at school I’m reminded of a little boy named Jared. His mother has kept this website in memory of him, he committed suicide after being bullied at school. WWW.JAREDSTORY.COM It’s really nicely done. But this effort won’t help Jared, or little boys like him. The teacher’s and the administration stood idlely by while he was physcially beaten by another kid until this 12 year old took his own life. His mother has fought passionately to turn back the tide on bullying.
The implication is prosecuting words will end violence. The same professional who were unable to notice violence, will continue in their lack of vision. If they couldn’t manage a parent complaining about a detention, they won’t be able to handle a parent suing over this either.
Not that I think it’s right, but I can offer an idea what they are using as a possible rule, at least for the girl who masqueraded as a boy. Most schools have students sign an Internet ethics form. When we had some students plagiarize from a website, they no longer had Internet access at the school (in addition to other punishments) because they had violated the ethics code, even though they didn’t prove that the plagiarism was done at school. Cyberstalking would be a violation of the ethics code, and perhaps the school was using this as a justification.
I heartily believe that schools shouldn’t police activities outside of school (other than mandatory reporting of suspected abuse and similar reporting). It interferes with privacy rights.
There was a case in PA last year where a school district tried to discipline a student for a violation of of their internet rules, even though it happened on the kid’s own computer, in his own home, and on his own time. The student took it to court and the judge found for the kid.
The mother asked the judge to issue a ruling reiterating that it’s up to parents to discipline their children for out of school internet incidents if they choose to do so, not the school’s, and the judge did.
What is needed ia a policy and general agreement on this question:
Should a school punish “bad” behavior which occurs completely off its school grounds?
Another way: Should a school take action against a child who commits a crime off school grounds?
I think not. It is not the school’s business to monitor the behavior of all children all the time. It is the parents’, society’s, and police responsibility. School power stops at the school boundry.
I’m curious as to how the school found out. Did the kid they were harrassing complain or something? ’cause you know, there are legal remedies for things like stalkers that flat out don’t involve the schools.
If your child had been listed on the so Called “HIT LIST” that these two had on their web page you would want the school to do everything in their power to keep them out of school. Even if it did not happen on school computers they are still a treat at school.
No, Taylor. I would not want the school extending their already considerable influence where it does not belong. At home the kids are the responsibility of the parents, that is who I would deal with. If it was a criminal activity there are police. There is absolutely no reason to give schools the power to monitor and direct students in their own homes.
You must not know anything about this case. These kids have a list of names of students at their school that they have written pomes about killing them and how they want to do it. The kids at school are in danger and yes they should be kept from coming back. It is the schools duty to protect these students that are on the list
I know that what they did is not the responsibility of the school to correct. That is why there are police.
I know that even if they did it at school where it was the school’s responsibility, the school is badly abusing their own written codes in what they are doing now.
I know beyond a doubt that what the school is doing now is illegal, immoral and improper.
When MY child’s well being is at risk I do not care what it takes I will fight to make sure they are not let back in!!!!!!
And 13 other parents agree with me!!
So your suggest is what?? Let them back in and pray they do not go through with their threats??
My suggestion is to let the police do their job and have the school obey their own rules as well as the law.
Hello. I would like this forum to see a letter to the editor from the oldest child�s mother:
“Already condemned
My son was arrested last week by Tangipahoa’s finest (the Sheriff’s Department). The charges are cyber-stalking and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Because of this, my son has been expelled from school, has lost his job and has been judged by this community just on hearsay.
The defaming from this town is what started this to begin with. This is the true story about these children and how these so-called adults are teaching them that it’s not OK to bully people.
It started last summer (before my son even knew this boy). The boy built a Web site about skateboarding. A girl pretending to be a boy on the Web started bashing the boy and even went so far as to post a Web site with his picture on it, calling him Loranger’s biggest fag. The boy, as children will do, struck back, with his own views of the girl who was pretending to be a boy. I wonder who was really in confusion about their gender.
This cyber bullying went on for the better part of the school year, then the boy met my son. My son befriended him, and the boy shared with him what was happening to him. He was angry and depressed and felt alone.
My son, not being from this town from the first day of his life, understood because he suffered the same rejection and isolation the boy was going through. He shared with this boy how he got rid of all the hate and anger he had inside of him by writing poems. And because he’s gone through so much here he has become a very talented writer. Even the sheriff’s office and the High Tech Crime Unit says so; so it must be true.
They would chat on line, on their own computers, in their own homes, at their own time. My son shared some of his poems with the boy (contributing to the delinquency of a minor) and gave permission to post them on the site the boy constructed this past summer. Because the boy had a list of all the kids from school that had been bulling him (that Loranger High did nothing about) my son as also charged with cyber-stalking.
The boy and his parents have told authorities that my son had noting to do with this, but because these “adults” are so intent on bullying my son themselves they wont listen to them
It’s no wonder our children are acting out this way. Look at the examples they have to follow.
Most parents work and spend an average of six hours a day with their children. We try to teach and mold them into well-balanced adults. But when the law and a school who thinks they are above the law teaches them otherwise, it sometimes feels like a losing battle.
Just a little FYI: the vice principal of Loranger High and the sheriff are brothers.
So, in my opinion, if they want our children to grow u p and act like adults, then maybe they should first practice what they preach not teach. I should first practice what they preach not teach. I praise God that I taught my children to believe in themselves even if it feels the whole world is against them.
My concern isn�t just for these three students but for the other young people who have to go through the vicious cycle they should not have to go though in this town. Maybe if their parents are good friends, or grew up here they wont have to worry about that.
Maybe this will be a catalyst that will change this town’s way of thinking and maybe acceptance will come easy no matter who you are or where you may or may not come from.”
This article has a few problems.
1) The 14 year old child was not feeling alone, depressed, etc. This was assumed from reading his poetry.
2) It was calling him Loranger’s Biggest Queer, but for some reason the media refrains from using this word. It gets substituted with homosexual or fag.
3) The website was made for skateboard pictures. And was up for a year, longer than this article says.
The only cyberbullying that was done here is the 15-year-old girl who called the 14-year-old boy “Loranger’s Biggest Queer.” The 14-year-old boy’s website was made for skateboarding pictures and several pages. One was a list of the kids who bullied him (the 15-year-old girl was included) and another was some poems that he had made to express himself. None of these poems had anything directly to do with the list of bullies (preps). He even had a disclaimer stating so! He also had pages with pictures and many other things.
None of this happened at school so none of it should be prosecuted by the school. This is just another case of a school system “putting their nose in someone else’s feces.”
First off let me say that I think maybe some of you should step back and take a look at this situation. You say it’s up to the law? So, if I put up a website with a list of so-called preps and jocks who picked on me with sick poems about bloodshed and put someone elses life at stake, it would be up to authorities to handle the case? So, for all of you who say yes, if your daughter was raped away from school, by another student from her school, it would be okay to let this child back at school, because, hey it didn’t happen at school. Somebody needed to step in before things got out of hand. To the mother of the 18 year old boy, I know him real well, to say he was alone and felt unaccepted is wrong. How do I know? I personally took him under my wing, and introduced him to a really good crowd of wait, oh yeah, we were jocks. I picked him up for church several times and hung out with him as often as possible. He chose his own fate, and we all must live with our choices. To say it’s because he’s not from here is ludacris, I’m not from here nor did I have a problem finding somewhere to fit in.To bring up the fact that the Asst. Principal is the sheriff’s brother is wrong. Andrew Edwards has always been a fair man, no matter who his relations are. So maybe next time you point that finger and blame somebody else for what problems you may encounter in your further endeavors, you should look down and realize there are four more pointing right back at you. May justice be served.
They shouldnt by punished because i personally know them and know that they wouldnt do that, but i guess if you didnt really know the person then it could scare you if they said something like that.
Dammit, taylor! It’s a preppie list, meaning a list of people whom are full of themselves. Not a list of people to kill. For Crist’s sake, get it through your head that it is not a list of people who, in the perception of the “perpetrators,” should die, but a list of people whom could have better social ethics and interaction polocies. I, a high school student in a public education facility fondly referred to as “Preppy Ridge,” rather than the true name, Prairie ridge, would be the first to know this, especially because I am of the reject group. I’m not popular, and I’m constantly verbally abused due to it, and I think that these people are under the same duress. I feel for them. I would post my preppie list, but I do not want to invade the privacy of those listed.
i think that this is crazy because people that do bullying are cool. what it is,is that people dont know how to stick up for there selves in life so they can get over it or atleast maybe learn how to stick up for there selves well thats it bye!!