Deliberate School Attack Shows Dark Side Of YouTube
Posted December 22, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Hamilton Police saw the good side of that this week, when a video they posted of a stabbing at a local club helped lead to a suspect in the case surrendering this week.
But there’s a darker side to this endless video vault. And the lawmen’s colleagues in New Jersey have now seen its evil twin.
Authorities in the city of Trenton have arrested two teenage girls for ambushing another student outside a school gym. Their alleged motive for the crime: to post a video of the humiliating incident on YouTube.
Cops say the suspects, aged 14 and 16, taped the confrontation on a cell phone camera then deliberately posted it online in order to taunt the victim and let her classmates watch it.
One of the girls is facing assault charges and both have been fingered for harassment.
The case surfaced when the parents of the victim saw the shocking footage online.
“It was brutal,” describes South Brunswick Detective Jim Ryan. “Luckily the female victim only received minor injuries.”
But it didn’t stop with just one site. “She e-mailed it to numerous other friends, then posted it on everything from YouTube to Google video to MySpace,” the officer explains.
All three have since taken it down, but due to the nature of the Internet, it keeps resurfacing.
It’s the latest instance of a disturbing new trend known as cyber-bullying, in which a victim is ridiculed online and the web address sent to as many of her peers as possible. Video adds a new component to the anguish.
Unlike this case, the culprits can sometimes be difficult to track down and the damage is often done before they can be found and the offending site is removed by the web hosting service.
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