Jo's Cafe

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COSTA MESA, Calif. – A middle school student faces expulsion for allegedly posting graphic threats against a classmate on the popular MySpace.com Web site, and 20 of his classmates were suspended for viewing the posting, school officials said.

Police are investigating the boy’s comments about his classmate at TeWinkle Middle School as a possible hate crime, and the district is trying to expel him.

According to three parents of the suspended students, the invitation to join the boy’s MySpace group gave no indication of the alleged threat. They said the MySpace social group name’s was “I hate (girl’s name)” and included an expletive and an anti-Semitic reference.

Gone are the days of pranks on the playground, gum in the hair, lockers taped shut when trying to harass a fellow student. What the hell? Sure, we all remember the bully from our days locked into the public school system that taunted us, called us names and professed to the rest of the students that he/she hated us.

Now with the internet, they can display their bully tactics online for everyone to see. Instead of just calling people names, disparaging your heritage because of the side of tracks you were born on, kids just fire up a blog and pronounce their stupidity and immaturity.

But this is going way beyond the school hallways:

A later message to group members directed them to a nondescript folder, which included a posting that allegedly asked: “Who here in the (group name) wants to take a shotgun and blast her in the head over a thousand times?”

Are these parents embarrassed with the trash they brought up?

Metz said the students’ suspensions in mid-February were appropriate because the incident involved student safety. Some parents however questioned whether the school overstepped its bounds by disciplining students for actions that occurred on personal computers, at home and after school hours.

Overstepped its bounds? Give me a frackin’ break. I support what the school did. These malcontents threatened the life of another student. They didn’t spray paint her locker, they didn’t scratch her number in the boys’ bathroom stalls to call for a good time — No they discussed actually killing this girl. So instead of showing outrage about what their children did, they are angry at the school for trying to protect another student. How many killings of students is it going to take for parents to wake the frack up and realize that the school was trying to prevent something more lethal with this suspension. No, they are showing “outrage” at the school for suspending their precious child (gag). Maybe dad and mom if you’d been better parents and knew what your brat was doing against a fellow student, it wouldn’t have had to go to the school to try and prevent another killing.

Linked @:
basil’s blog: Open Trackbacks 2006-03-04
Cao’s Blog: Sunday OTB