Pandora’s Blog

More MySpace senselessness. I think the first thing that parents need to teach their kids regarding the internet is that it is full of a-holes, ignore them as you would in real life.

Apparently, in the Cleveland area, a verbal feud escalated from a fight online to one of the teens showing up at the other’s house and shooting her. Seriously?

First of all, calm the eff down, kids. Second: way to go parents for being involved in your child’s online life! Give them the power of the internet and then turn your heads – great job.

Next time, use PC Pandora to KNOW what your kids are doing online and how they are acting, behaving and representing themselves,

April 05, 2009
Cleveland shooting shows how cyberbullying is spreading and leading to real-world confrontations
Rachel Dissell, Plain Dealer Reporter

A feud between two teens that started on MySpace escalated last week into a shooting.

A bullet grazed 13-year-old Briana Lewis’ ear after another teen she was arguing with online showed up at her home on Jesse Avenue in Cleveland to fight, according to police. Briana was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center for observation.

The shooting is an extreme example of a growing trend that troubles educators, parents and juvenile-justice officials – cyberbullying. Many teen feuds that start with online taunts turn into physical confrontations, experts said.

In 2007, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that at least a third of teens active on the Internet had been threatened, harassed or embarrassed online.

They also found that girls were more likely to be targeted than boys.

Face-to-face bullying is still more prevalent than its online counterpart. But Parry Aftab, a lawyer and expert on cybercrime and Internet privacy who has written several parental guides about children and the Internet, said that about 60 percent of Internet incidents escalate to offline confrontations, as did last week’s shooting.

It’s unclear what Briana and the other teen were feuding about, police said.

Briana’s mother, Tamika, broke up the initial fight but the other girl returned to finish the confrontation with a group of friends and a shotgun, according to a police report.

One of the friends, believed to be a male, opened fire, hitting Briana as she sat in a truck. The cab of the truck was also pierced by several gunshots.

The fallout of the crimes has been seen in the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court.

Administrative Judge Thomas F. O’Malley said schools and community groups have been inviting court officials to speak about teens and technology because of recent cases of bullying and of teens sending and receiving nude pictures over the Internet and cell phones, which is illegal.

“Juvenile Court has seen a significant rise in both Internet and cell phone crimes,” O’Malley said. “And this can be kind of expected because of the access today that juveniles have to this technology.”

Cuyahoga County prosecutors and judges also encourage parents to know their children’s online friends and whom they are texting.

“You wouldn’t drop your son or daughter off at the mall and not know who they are with,” said Ryan Miday, spokesman for the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office. “The same applies with the Internet and cell phones.”

Parry Aftab supports a nonprofit Web site with tools and help for parents and teens: wiredsafety.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 4:00 PM and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.