By Sarah Stephens
Elmore Autauga News
An Autauga County 11-year-old female is the latest to get caught making threats on social media, this time involving Prattville Christian Academy.
Prattville Chief Mark Thompson said he was notified of the threat Friday, and the juvenile suspect was located and questioned quickly. Thompson said there was no real threat to safety per their investigation. However, making the threat is considered a crime.
Thompson said that these types of crimes could be avoided, if more parents monitored their children’s social media accounts, internet activity and cell phones.
“If a parent is providing this type of technology to their young child, and not monitoring what they are posting or looking at, the parent is just as guilty as the child,” Thompson said.
With all of these incidents in our area recently, investigators went through all devices that could have been used by the juveniles involved. Thompson said it is “really scary” to see what kids are sending and receiving in modern times.
When it comes to juveniles and crime, Autauga County has only five available detention beds guaranteed at any given time. These are generally reserved for the most serious or violent crimes. The beds are located at the Air Base, in a juvenile detention facility, he said.
It is the same in Elmore County, where just five beds are allotted for the entire county for juvenile offenders.
Once a juvenile goes to court on charges, if they are sentenced to serve time they most likely would serve that time at the Mt. Meigs juvenile facility.
“Juvenile cases are one of the most frustrating for our department, because most of this activity should be handled by parents. When that doesn’t happen, it throws it back on us,” Thompson said. “But this type of misbehavior should be dealt with in the home early. Parents do have a right to corporal punishment that we are not allowed to do. Today you see parents debating and negotiating with their kids.”
He continued, “In some generations, kids knew that if they got in trouble anywhere, it was going to be worse at home. There were generations that were raised with consequences, but that is not what we are seeing with kids these days.”
That is, until they do something serious enough that they break a law, and police must intervene.
The Prattville Police Department posted the information below a short while ago to their Facebook account.
“It is all too often that law enforcement agencies across the country have to spend precious time and resources investigating social media threats involving schools to find out that there was no actual threat, that the person(s) responsible were callously using social media to sow fear into their school or communities for either social media clout, a quick “laugh” or severe lack of empathy on how their actions affect others. This is especially disheartening given that an actual fatal school shooting just occurred not too long ago in Georgia. The threats similar to the ones made last week were also seen throughout the State and Southeast part of the country, involving and wasting more resources over nothing. With this said, you can hopefully understand the frustration that not only we felt, but the parents and administrators at schools feel when a false threat is made.
“Luckily, any and all threats that were observed last week that alleged to involve Prattville schools were ultimately found to be unsubstantiated and our children were never in any actual danger. This included not only our public schools, but also reports of threats being made involving Prattville Christian Academy later in the week. All such posts and messages were thoroughly investigated by the PPD, which led to the quick identification of multiple juvenile suspects, and who were located and brought to the PD for interview and assessment as to the credibility of the threats.
“All involved juvenile suspects (ranging from 11-15 years of age) are being charged with the appropriate offenses and have been referred to the Autauga County Juvenile Probation office for prosecution. Pursuant to Alabama Code § 12-15-134, all juvenile suspect information is considered ‘confidential’ and will not be released by the PPD. Through this process, we will partner with the juvenile court to ensure that the suspects are held accountable for their actions, which could include probation, community service, behavioral counseling, financial liability for incurred costs through the parents/guardians, fines, and/or juvenile detention, if deemed necessary and appropriate,
“Again, we greatly appreciate the partnership with all school administrators and teachers, as well as those who sent in the posts and messages to us to assist in the investigative process. Given the seriousness of the nature of the messages and social media posts, ALL threats (whether implied or explicit, fake or real) involving our schools and students are taken seriously by us the PPD and our agency will prosecute those involved to the fullest extent of the law possible.
“Ultimately, though, we hope that parents work with us and the schools about spreading awareness about this topic to prevent this type of behavior in the future. We hope that the incidents last week serve as a pertinent reminder that all parents need to have consistent, active involvement in their children’s activities concerning cell phones, the Internet and social media usage, including teaching them about responsible Internet usage and the consequences they could face for irresponsible and/or illegal use. It’s quite alarming to see what our kids are doing on these devices when being forensically examined by law enforcement, much of which parents are not aware of, including extremely graphic and vulgar content, drug use, pornography/self-production, and other sensitive content that should not be consumed by children.”
If you have any questions about Internet safety, social media usage for children or would like resources on how to talk to your kids about it, we highly recommend you visit the NCMEC Netsmartz site for educational materials, including videos.
https://www.missingkids.org/netsmartz/home
As always, call us if you need us.
