Cyberbullies Update - Criminal Action Against Students Suspected of Bullying Pheobe Prince

I first wrote about the suicide of 15 year-old Phoebe Prince in my little New England town of South Hadley, MA on February 1 in a post titled Cyberbullies. I know this terrible story has hit national and local news around the world - if you haven't seen details - here's an update from a local article at MassLive.com:

Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel Monday announced the indictments of six teenagers accused of having bullied Phoebe so severely September through January that she hanged herself Jan. 14.

The district attorney also said she has taken out complaints in Hampshire-Franklin Juvenile Court against three female juveniles in the matter.

Charges in the indictments range from statutory rape to stalking and civil rights violations in the harassment of Phoebe, a resident of Ireland who moved to town in the fall and enrolled in South Hadley High School as a ninth grader.

On Monday, District Attorney Scheibel provided an account of Phoebe’s final hours:

On the last day of her life, Phoebe N. Prince was harassed in the South Hadley High School library during lunch period, harassed in the school hallway as the final bell rang and harassed as she walked home along Newton Street.

The 15-year-old sophomore finally made it home to 356 Newton St. and, sometime between 2:48 and 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 14, ended more than four months of relentless bullying by hanging herself in the stairwell leading to her family’s second-floor apartment. She was still wearing the clothes she wore to school.

Pheobe's little sister found her hanging in that stairwell when she came home from school.

Here's more from Scheibel:

Three individuals – a male and two females – were involved in assaultive behavior against Prince on that last day, motivated by the group’s displeasure with Phoebe’s brief dating relationship with the male student.

Amid the details of names and charges, Scheibel painted a scenario in which Prince went through daily hell at school for months while most of the student body, along with some faculty and administrators, knew what was happening but failed to act.

The investigation revealed relentless activity directed toward Phoebe, designed to humiliate her and to make it impossible for her to remain at school.

The bullying, for her, became intolerable.

Amazingly - according to Scheibel - Facebook and Craigslist have been little help:

A significant obstacle and delay for investigators in this case has been the inexplicable lack of cooperation from Internet service providers.... in particular, Facebook and Craigslist.

There are also still some very serious (non-criminal according to the DA) issues to be dealt with by this town including the faculty and administrators who are alleged to have known what was happening to Phoebe but failed to act.

Cyberbullying And Electronic Fingerprints

In my last post I discussed a very upsetting story in my town - South Hadley, Massachusetts. On January 14, fifteen year Phoebe Prince apparently committed suicide after being bullied - in school, after school and online. The cyberbullying has even continued after here death, most notably on Facebook. There's been a lot of traffic on that post - here's an update.

Last night there was a Selectboard meeting in South Hadley and people were given the opportunity to publicly comment as part of the meeting format. I did not attend tot meeting but watched the live feed on the town cable access channel. A number of parents got up and described how their children had been treated. Here's a short video clip from the meeting posted in a Masslive.com article

South Hadley selectboard meeting becomes a forum bullying discussion

I believe an entire meeting video recording will be posted soon on the South Hadley Community Television site. Also - here's a few quotes from that same MassLive.com article.

What people wanted to know in particular was what discipline has been handed down by South Hadley High School to the so-called “mean girls” believed to have bullied 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who was found dead at home of an apparent suicide on the afternoon of Jan. 14.

South Hadley High School principal Daniel T. Smith has his own investigation running parallel to the one by local police working with the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office. So far, Smith has said two students were disciplined before Prince’s death and a third was disciplined stemming from an assault on another student after Prince died. School officials have refused to say what the discipline consisted of, citing legal and privacy rights of the students.

Prior to the start of the meeting, a female classmate of Prince said she is disturbed that the students believed to have bullied Prince are still in school. “I’m concerned about what is going to happen in this,” said the girl who declined to give her name. “I think they should get punished, and it should happen soon. Nothing really happened to them.”

And, our police chief also spoke at the meeting. Here's a couple quotes from a WBZTV article:

Police Chief David Labrie says they have interviewed numerous people in their investigation. He says they are closer to the end of the case than the beginning.

"We've subpoenaed records from Facebook, we've subpoenaed web pages from Facebook, hoping to track down the perpetrators of some of these criminal threatening acts."

Without getting technical - this information is backed up and logged by providers like Facebook, Verizon and Comcast. All postings, text messages, tweets, etc are available and identified with either an Internet Protocol (IP) address or cell phone number of the posting source. With applications like Facebook there is even more - in addition to your IP address your username is also logged. Once you hit that Send/OK/Upload/etc button it's out there.

With the proper subpoenas authorities can access all of it - source identification, text, pictures, who posted what, when it was posted, when and if it got removed, what got removed, comments, etc, etc, etc.

It's all there - electronic fingerprints.

Cyberbullies

I'd like to thank Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll for including my blog in the Blog Book Tour for Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration.

Karl and Tony's book uses a combination of case studies, conceptual models, and input from dozens of industry experts to provide practical, research-based recommendations and techniques for integrating existing training, business, and computer systems into productive 3D virtual work environments. Up until yesterday my intention had been to give an update of an earlier book blog tour post I wrote on September 26, 2007 and titled Broadband Gaming in the Sticks. In that post I looked at broadband access and availability in the United States - critical for 3D learners and the applications and methods Karl and Tony discuss in their new book.

As far as broadband goes - things have not got much better since 2007 in most of the rural communities in our country - in many places I would argue access today is worse than it was in September 2007. Important stuff but I'm going to save that post for another day.

Why did I change my mind? I live in South Hadley, Massachusetts, a small New England town where things are typically pretty quiet. On January 14, Phoebe Prince, a fifteen year old ninth grader was found dead in my town - an apparent suicide. She had moved here from Ireland last year with her family and has been described by the parent of a friend as the new girl in school. ... a very pretty girl, very sweet, a smart girl. She had been bullied in school, after school and online.

Unbelievably, the online cyberbullying has continued after her death. On Saturday January 30 (16 days after her death) NBC affiliate WWLP published a story titled Online groups bully Phoebe in death. Here's a couple of quotes from that story:

A recent Facebook group formed in the wake of the student's suicide is raising eyebrows. It's called, "We murdered Phoebe Prince". The latest attack group has classmates seemingly boasting about driving the Irish girl to death earlier this month.

Horrible, hate filled messages continue to plague pages dedicated to the freshman's death. Parents are calling for greater accountability by officials.

You may have caught the story nationally broadcast on Good Morning America January 28. Here's the GMA video - I encourage you to watch all 5 minutes and 41 seconds of it if you have not seen it. Show it to your kids.

Now, back to Karl and Tony's book - I'm a huge online, social media, ubiquitous connectivity, 24/7, crank the bandwidth to 11 advocate. Keeping up with the web and all of its applications and connections is critical for individual success and the long term success of our country. Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook, is referenced in the book suggesting that communication should not be viewed as a way for people to get information. Instead, he proposes that information is a mechanism to foster better communication between people. As students, parents, teachers, coaches, administrators, professors, adults...... it is crucial to remember better communication can be used in both positive and negative ways.

Using technology in our classrooms in appropriate and productive ways has the potential to help us all learn and also has the potential to lay down some usage guidelines and experience that can be applied outside the classroom. Karl and Tony's book helps us understand how we can better do this. It also helps us better understand what our students and kids are doing. I believe every teacher, trainer, professor and academic should read it. Let's learn to use this stuff in positive ways with our students.

I'll write about rural broadband some other time. Today - Peace to Phoebe, her family, her friends, her enemies and this small New England town.

*****

You can check out the web site for the book Learning in 3D and read Chapter One of Karl and Tony's book to get a sense of what the book is about. You can also become a fan on Learning in 3D's Facebook Page.

To learn more about cyberbullying, see Attorney Parry Aftab and the Wired Safety Group's website stopcyberbullying.com