By Anika Clark / New Bedford Standard-Times
Saturday, October 9, 2010
LAKEVILLE — They say rumors spread like wildfire. But what if that fire is on Facebook?
Freetown and Lakeville found out last week when an alleged, gossiped-about threat of violence went viral.
Lakeville police never substantiated a rumor that an Apponequet Regional High School student had threatened to attack fellow students, according to acting Police Chief Frank Alvilhiera.
But in the meantime, "kids were hearing things on Facebook and then it got to the point where some kids were not going to go to school," he said.
After fielding calls from the public, some police officers headed to Apponequet for a short time on the morning of Friday, Oct. 1, to ease students' minds. School officials also issued a statement to high school families later that morning via the district's automated notification system.
Freetown-Lakeville Schools Superintendent John McCarthy described the incident as simply a "peer relationship problem" involving a small number of students. In keeping with procedure, administrators contacted police in both towns on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 30, but determined there was no threat, McCarthy said.
In an e-mail to The Standard-Times, Apponequet Principal Jill Proulx said the school has emergency procedures to deal with immediate dangers.
But in terms of risk, "This was about as low-level as you get," McCarthy said. Students made "some comments" to one another that they shouldn't have, he explained, "but the fact that this got somehow translated into ... rumors of school threat is grossly exaggerated."
Exactly what people feared would happen depends on whom you ask — as evidenced by differing accounts given to The Standard-Times as to the reason for the student's supposed discontent and the date of the planned attack.
"It was never specific as to "¦ weapon or exactly what the threat could be," according to Alvilhiera, who said people were afraid the student would hurt classmates that Friday. A parent warned Freetown police of a murderous attack planned for that Monday, said Freetown Chief Carlton Abbott Jr.
And Derek Maksy, a Lakeville selectman who called police Thursday, said he'd heard from students that a kid had made threats via Facebook and "had people he was going to kill."
"To me, that's enough," he said.
McCarthy said that while elements of the peer problem may have brewed on Facebook, he is not aware of any threat posted on the network. He called Maksy's statement "blown way out of proportion" and said no students at Apponequet were in danger.
Regardless, the incident sounds like a game of "Telephone" on cyber-steroids, thanks to a system that has more than 500 million active users, each of whom is linked into an average of 130 friends.
Kids "might hear one thing and by the time it gets to the fifth person, there's all different versions they heard," Alvilhiera said.
It's a reality that's likely here to stay.
"Because of the information flying so quickly, either through the social networks or through texting or however, you get information that's getting spread and it's false information," McCarthy said. "So you're oftentimes dealing with trying to quell the rumors at the same time (as) you're trying to investigate what actually took place."
Freetown Selectman Jean Fox said social networks give teenagers who characteristically lack impulse control an instant outlet to express themselves in a way that might be tough to take back.
"I don't think they always realize that it goes beyond their immediate friends, that that's accessible by the whole world," she said. "In my day, we didn't have (Facebook), so I was allowed to go in my room, throw something and rethink."
She said posts can also be easily misconstrued.
Still, the massacres at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech make haunting cases for not taking warnings lightly.
"Columbine, in particular, changed the way police responded to school violence incidents," Alvilhiera said. "Any threat that you get that relates to the school I think nowadays is definitely taken a lot more seriously, and there's quite a bit of follow-up just to make sure that everyone is going to be safe."
As for the suggestion that this was merely the rumor mill gone haywire, Maksy said he hopes that is the case.
"I wish I could brush it off that easily. I can't," he said. "We know what people are capable of nowadays."
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