An increase in high profile school shootings across the nation is prompting public education officials to take a close look at threatening social media posts. In Richmond, Madison Middle School is investigating a social media threat this week.
Erin Stewart with the central Kentucky school system said anything that can be perceived as a threat is taken seriously and a call goes immediately to school resource officers. “Our number one priority after we pass along that threat to law enforcement is to make sure that our parents and our community knows the information that they need to know and we also have to take some cues from law enforcement to what can be shared and what we have to wait on,” said Stewart.
In a lot of cases, Stewart noted social media threats are not generalized about a particular school but focused on an individual, which also gets an investigative follow up.
She added new social media avenues offer an additional platform for those threats. “As social media has become more and more prevalent in all of our lives and in our daily functions and there have become more and more avenues for social media, you know additional apps and things added, we do see an increase in online posts that can be perceived as threats,” explained Stewart.
Stewart said many times young people don’t appreciate the repercussions about decisions made out of anger or hurt feelings.
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