Division responds to web threats

The two girls -- who have been in police custody for the past five days -- allegedly threatened other students on web-based social networking sites.

Their case shows how dangerous the Internet can be for children who don't understand that anything they write goes global almost instantly, Lord Selkirk superintendent Gail Bagnall said Wednesday.

Police and schools are taking the Selkirk threats extremely seriously in the wake of a different incident last month, in which two-year jail sentences were given to two Manitoba teens who had guns and planned to go on a killing spree at three schools and a church, Bagnall said.

The two Grade 9 students at Selkirk Junior High School have been in custody on charges of uttering threats since making online threats against other students Dec. 31, Selkirk RCMP said Wednesday.

School parents were told in letters sent home this week that the two accused "will not be returning to the school, for an indefinite period.

"One of the conditions we would insist on is a complete psychiatric assessment" before deciding when or if they could return to the school, Bagnall said.

"We hope both of these students get the psychiatric assessment and the help they need," she said.

The two 14-year-olds threatened to come into the school with weapons, said Bagnall, who was unaware if the two girls actually had access to any weapons.

"There were individuals named," said Bagnall.

Selkirk RCMP Staff Sgt. Mike Gibbs said police have not seized any weapons "at this point." He would not say whether investigators believe the girls had weapons or access to weapons.

"It's certainly a serious threat," Gibbs said. "Parents need to be diligent, knowing what their kids are up to."

Bagnall said that neither girl had previous school disciplinary problems and school administrators are not aware why the two girls targeted specific students.

"It was basically individuals they didn't like," Bagnall said.

Bagnall said the two girls were exchanging messages on Facebook and MSN, and texting each other on their cellphones on Dec. 31. The intensity of the messages escalated, and soon became accessible to other people.

"I don't think these girls had any notion how widely their threats spread," she said.

A student who read the exchanges told their mother, who called the RCMP, who in turn alerted the principal, said Bagnall.

"This was complicated by the fact it didn't happen in school, and on the holidays. It happened in a private home," she said.

School safety policies have widened in recent years to cover the Internet and electronic communications, enabling schools to take action if out-of-school activities threaten safety within the school.

Bagnall said the school's 500 students attended an assembly Monday morning with police and senior administrators, where the focus was on school safety and students' personal responsibility for what they choose to communicate.

"They think it's freedom of expression and they should be free to say whatever they want and whenever they want," Bagnall said.

She said the division has met with the threatened students and their parents.

And educators have also met with the parents of the two accused girls.

"Both (couples) are just shocked and horrified. They're in disbelief," Bagnall said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Cyber concerns

THE development of the Internet has forced school divisions to create policies covering outside-of-school activities that affect the safety of schools.

The first reported local web-based school safety incident came in 2001, when Winnipeg School Division expelled a junior high student for using his home computer to make personal attacks on teachers. Officials found out when other students used a school computer to access the site during school time.

In recent years, police investigated and River East Transcona School Division handed out suspensions after two junior high students tried to post death threats on ratemyteacher.com. The California-based website intercepted the threats before they could be posted and notified police here.

Hundreds of students, largely from Pembina Trails School Division, joined social networking site Facebook and vilified an older substitute teacher, who in his own time allegedly frequented bars that catered to younger patrons.

University of Manitoba administrators threatened disciplinary action after students in a program created a Facebook site to label a classmate as a stalker and heaped ridicule on him.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 7, 2010 A5