Students at Wilson High School, Governor Mifflin, Twin Valley, and Reading High School on Tuesday the 4th of October were horrified to learn that their schools had been threatened online. The Instagram account “gigglez_is.real” warned students at these schools that three clowns would show up at 12:30 on October the 5th in each school to murder or seriously injure students and teachers.
Students quickly alerted school staff of this threat and by third period an email addressing the posts had been sent. For the weeks leading up to this event, threats of clown violence against local schools had already been happening. However, this was one of the first threats taken seriously by state police and the schools.
Wilson made the decision for students to come in on October the 5th and have a normal day of school outside of the intensified security. While nothing occurred on the 5th, students and faculty were still worried about the threat and lack of information regarding the person making the threats.
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Going further to prove that she joking, she claimed that she just wanted a day off. This “joke” was not taken well among students as many had stayed home due to fear.
One student, Katelyn Bramble-Plotcher, had this to say about the threats made, “I think the whole clown situation was horrible and people need to think more of what they are doing. This caused many people fear and stress.”
Finally, on Thursday October the 13th, a 16 year-old girl from Wilson was arrested for clown violence. Nine days after the original threats were made, the culprit behind the fear was discovered. Upon being arrested, the girl was placed into a juvenile detention center.
While police have not yet released the name of the girl arrested, they did release the list of charges being brought against her. This list
In Vicksburg Mississippi, Friday Feb. 10 4:22 pm, two bomb threats — one to Vicksburg High School and another to District Attorney Ricky Smith’s office — made police/students evacuate the school and the Warren County Courthouse Friday afternoon.The threat at the high school was received by workers at the Vicksburg Warren E911 Communications Center about 1:55 p.m., workers received the threat to the district attorney’s office about three minutes later. Both areas were cleared about 40 minutes later. The bomb threats were similar an incident that occurred almost a year ago on Feb. 17,
A more recent case, J. S v. Bethlehem Area School (2000), is more relevant to the issues today. This court case involves a student who was expelled from the school for creating a website that included derogatory and threatening comments about members of the school’s administration. The Supreme Court ruled that the school’s actions were deemed justified due to evidence proving an obvious disruption of the school environment. In the courts closing arguments the following is stated, “Regrettably, in this day and age where school violence is becoming more commonplace, school officials are justified in taking very seriously threats against faculty and other students.”(Herbeck, 2010)
“[The students] are the best intel that we get,” Kelley said. “If you hear that somebody is planning something traumatic at school, whether it’s a school shooting or bombing... it’s important that you notify administration or the police department.”
Bullying is a serious problem with the potential of lasting effects. The two boys were planning an attack on the bullies that had made school miserable for them. “they were members of a group of social outcasts called the Trenchcoat Mafia that was fascinated by Goth culture.”( History.com Staff. "Columbine High School Shootings." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 20 Sept. 2017.) Klebold and Harris initially carried out the shooting as a retaliation for the miserable years in
The reason Klebold and Harris shot the students and staff is because they were being bullied. Bullying is a serious problem with the potential of lasting effects.
What can one learn from this violent tragedy, what mistakes did this instance have that can help evade other similar instances? It is commonly believed that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but maybe some schools would disagree with this statement, and take publicity more seriously than the welfare of their faculty, staff, and students. A school with a debauched reputation is not going to receive countless applicants, but is that a valid justification for not reporting disturbances and protecting their students? I believe that if turbulences exist, like a student threatening or shooting at people, schools should warn the cops right away. Mary Hoeft, a professor of communication arts and French at the University of Wisconsin – Barron County, wrote “Professors in the Crosshairs,” an article about incidents that have occurred at her school that should have been associated with the police. Hoeft addressed a situation that occurred at her school, where a disturbed young female student raged down the campus, yelling that she wanted to kill her English professor by aging her 120 years with a magic umbrella; luckily, the professor was out of town at a conference with
Clowns are draped all over social media and the news. People are using clown outfits just to get a popular video up on the internet. Clowns showing up by lampposts and chasing people around city streets. They send a mind crippling fear into people when they think of being in a situation with a killer clown. Imagine walking down what could be any street when you look down an old dirt road that you have passed a million times; You see it, it is what looks to be a blood thirsty clown waiting for a victim. Ironically it is most likely a guy who wants a funny video or just trying to get a good Halloween scare. A killer clown who is actually just a regular guy in a clown mask from Target... wait Target has missed out on huge clown mask sales due
While it may never be known why Kennon took the teacher hostage, the situation shines a light on how easy it is for people to make their way into schools. From this situation, schools will hopefully decide to implement stricter admittance policies and possibly employ more security guards to watch over schools and protect
Although parents send their child to school every day to learn, they often come across school violence dealing with bullying, weapons, and threats. School violence has become a serious problem in recent decades throughout many countries. It deals with violence between not only school students, but also attacks by students on school staff. It all began with the Pontiac Rebellion of July 1764. 1927 Andrew Kehoe set bombs off at school in Bath, Michigan. In 1959, Paul Orgeron set off a bomb at a playground in Texas that killed himself alongside teachers and students. Within the time period of the early 1900s until present day the Federal Bureau of Investigation had recorded 272 school violence incidents. (History on School Violence) Violence in school takes many forms and includes, raping, bullying, stealing, harming and killing other students or members of staff. Side effects of school violence after often negative not only does it run the school atmosphere, but it also creates a distraction to students and their concentration. Violence is not something that students see themselves having to deal with at school students who involve
Bee, T. (2014, October 17). UPDATE: Delavan H.S. student arrested for online shooting threat.FOX6Now.com. Retrieved October 20, 2014, from http://fox6now.com/2014/10/17/increased-police-presence-at-east-troy-schools-following-potential-threat/
Unfortunately, school shootings and threats have become more common throughout the past 18 years. One of the first major school shootings that brought attention to gun violence in America was the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. According to the U.S. History website state that two teens, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting spree throughout the school. After killing 12 students and one teacher, the boys then killed themselves. During the investigation on the boys motives, investigators came to the conclusion that most likely the shooting was connected to bullying because the boys were members of social outcast groups, and violence in video games. It is unfortunate that bullying may have been the cause of this awful event in history, but it is even more upsetting that school shootings like these, have happened again at an even worse
Alex’s peers say that he was a quiet, smart kid that was not bullied. A different peer said "He was somewhat friendly,and smart. Also that he had friends,and didn't seem to be bullied and also that he didn’t seem like a mean kid." Detectives said that there was threatening phone calls to two unknown students before the attack. The call told the two boys that he was going to "f--- them up," according to AP. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said "I don't know of those phone calls. I don't know where they came from. I assume that they'll trace those calls to some cell phone."
The crisis began on the second week of school when a number of teachers were displaced from their assignment at this particular school. This displacement caused a lot of emotional pushback by other teachers, parents and most definitely students. One particular student moved quickly in an attempt to rally the students to support the displaced teachers. Though she was only able to get two other students to participate with her and speak that night at the school board meeting, their bravery stood out to members of the school board as well as administration within the school. The video of their moving speeches has been shared over and over on social media.
On September 7th, the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina published a Facebook post reporting that two clown sightings had been “investigated and found to be false” (shown below).
They continued to walk to school and didn’t pay attention to the clown. Cars passed and they seen other kids walking to school too, but what they didn’t expect to see was the clown again but on a different street corner.