December 4, 2007 1:23 PM
Should charges have been filed in MySpace hoax?
No charges will be filed against anyone involved in inventing a handsome boy on MySpace who gained the confidence and online friendship of a 13-year-old who hanged herself after the "boy" insulted her.
On Monday, Jack Banas, the prosecutor for St. Charles County, Mo., announced that no charges would be filed against Lori Drew or anyone else involved in inventing a handsome boy named “Josh Evans” to gain the confidence of Megan Meier and find out what she was saying about Drew’s daughter.Local and state laws dealing with cyber harassment require a continuing pattern of abuse, and Banas found that messages on the account rose to the level of bullying only on the day that ended with Megan’s suicide.
Drew, who lives up the street from the Meier's knew the deception was occuring but didn't know it had turned ugly until after Megan killed herself, Drew's attorney told the TODAY show.
“She knew these girls were doing it and she didn’t stop it,” attorney Jim Briscoe told TODAY’s Matt Lauer during an exclusive interview Tuesday. “She wishes she did. If she could turn back the clock, that’s the part she would do differently.”Drew has yet to speak publicly about the events leading to Megan’s death in October 2006, and Briscoe’s appearance on the show was the first time anyone has presented her side of the story.
“Everything, as far as Mrs. Drew knew, was that all the communication was nice and polite and there was no harassing going on,” Briscoe said. “She did not create the MySpace account. She did not instruct anybody to create the MySpace account. She never made any communications through the MySpace account.”
The account, according to news reports, was created by a young woman employed by Drew. The woman, who was 18 at the time, has been under psychiatric care since Megan’s suicide.
Should laws about online harassment be stiffened so that a single incident, rather than a pattern, of bullying can be considered harassment? Would that impinge on free speech? Do you monitor your childrens' use of online networks such as MySpace?
December 4, 2007
2:24 PM
fiesty writes:
This situation is so sad. There has been some comprehensive coverage on it, which revealed quite a few more details than listed here. First, contrary to what's stated here, the police have said that Drew didn't just know the girls were doing it, according to several reports, SHE was the one that created the account after hearing her daughter complain about the Meier's daughter. Even if this account was correct, she instructed on her employees. Either way, Drew has admitted she did it deliberately and solely to gain her confidence- contact under false pretenses. That's wrong- if she had an issue, she should have contacted the other parent. Second, she knew that the Meier's daughter had mental issues. That makes her act even more egregarious and despicable.
There may not be a law to cover this for a criminal charge, but I'd say she most definitely has some accountability and should be tried civilly.
December 4, 2007
2:48 PM
Dirk Gently writes:
Fiesty, I agree. I think the most you could charge her with would be fraud, and since there was no financial transaction, even that would be a huge stretch.
At least this woman will be shunned by all who know her, hopefully, and hopefully she will live with this tremendous guilt the rest of her days.
December 4, 2007
9:51 PM
Brian in Evans writes:
MySpace is loaded with thousands of convicted child predator sex offendors, and no doubtens of thousands more not yet convicted. It's a garbage website that should not exist.
December 5, 2007
8:49 AM
just sayin' writes:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/12/04/blog.arrest.ap/index.html
this story disturbs me. Seems like an anonymous smart aleck blog, but really should he be arrested?
December 5, 2007
9:49 AM
Dirk Gently writes:
Wow, that is worrying, Just Sayin'. I mean, I know people have been losing their sense of humor, and conservatives in particular seem not to really grasp sarcasm or irony very well ( ;) ), but this is patently absurd. There is a WORLD of difference between shouting "fire!" in a theater and making unseemly comments on a blog. I think of all the stuff everyone here posts, and I'm guessing, what, 80% of it can be construed as "threatening"?
Don't prosecutors have better things to do than go after school teachers who are mocking their political foes?
December 5, 2007
12:04 PM
Hogar De Vuelta (العودة) writes:
Dirk,
That is why we need to get back to real freedom of speech. I can tell you that the place where speech is the most censored these days is in an educational institution. There should be no government action taken against "offensive" speech. Only speech along the lines of yelling "fire" in a theater, or a real threat to do bodily harm.
December 5, 2007
12:12 PM
Anonymous writes:
The girl who killed herself was obviously weak minded, like the lunatic left. The other girl was probably not going for that sort of reaction and should not be tried or sued. The parents should just burn the offenders house down and teach them a lesson in civility. Anyone who kills themselves over some crap on myspace is clearly not all there to begin with, which by the sounds of the article and her medication she was not. Kudos to the girl who got her to do it, one less lunatic who probably would have turned out be a lefty anyway is now dead and can never ever vote for a lunatic lefty. Between abortions, drugs and sucicied, the right should own this country in about 25 years. And we can simply ship the rest of the left off to some island and take turns waterboarding them
December 5, 2007
12:44 PM
Anonymous writes:
Good to see you again Harry...Brilliant insight as always.
December 5, 2007
4:02 PM
jay writes:
" I can tell you that the place where speech is the most censored these days is in an educational institution."
What kind of speech do you feel is being censored in our schools these days, H? I understand that Bennish was censored, but what else?
December 5, 2007
4:32 PM
Anonymous writes:
Jay,
The fact that you recognize the fate of Bennish as censorship rather than an employee performance issue and can't imagine that Bennish was censoring the views of his students with the climate he cultivated in his classroom, makes any discussion rather pointless.
I can tell you based on my experience in college after my conversion to Christianity that I had a choice of getting the professor pissed and earning a D in the course, or keeping my mouth shut and getting an A. The hostility toward Christians in the public college and university that I attended on the East Coast made this blog seem like a warm fuzzy blanket.
Thanks for the tip on My Brothers Bar, I will let you know how they compare with Tom's place.
December 5, 2007
4:33 PM
Anonymous writes:
Jay,
The fact that you recognize the fate of Bennish as censorship rather than an employee performance issue and can't imagine that Bennish was censoring the views of his students with the climate he cultivated in his classroom, makes any discussion rather pointless.
I can tell you based on my experience in college after my conversion to Christianity that I had a choice of getting the professor pissed and earning a D in the course, or keeping my mouth shut and getting an A. The hostility toward Christians in the public college and university that I attended on the East Coast made this blog seem like a warm fuzzy blanket.
Thanks for the tip on My Brothers Bar, I will let you know how they compare with Tom's place.
December 5, 2007
6:37 PM
jay writes:
hogar I'm not sure that upholding the separation of church and state is "censorship".
have the JCB at My Brothers. trust me
December 5, 2007
8:02 PM
Dirk Gently writes:
Anon (who may be Hogar):
Was it really your beliefs, or the way in which you espoused them? Did you really get D's for being a Christian, or applying Christian analytical tools when you were supposed to be learning to apply whatever it was the prof was teaching? In my experience, people who claim that they are not allowed to air their views in university classrooms are the sort of folks who are misunderstand the dynamic of how university classroom discussions are supposed to go. Also, nobody really gets D's in public universities any more, unless they've done something for worse and/or incompetent than what you indicate.
Or did you make your story up?
As for Bennish: we went over this before, but while Bennish clearly crossed a line in the degree to which he advocated his positions, he didn't "suppress" opinion--he argued against it. There's a huge difference, even if he's abusing his power in the way in which he argued against those opinions, and there was never any indication that his views influenced his grading. Anyway, I can't believe he nearly lost his job because he deigned to say that US foreign policy isn't all sunshine, rainbows and gumdrops. How dare he.
December 6, 2007
8:43 AM
benn writes:
Yea,
As a recent graduate for the 'HATED LIBERL INSTITUTION OF CU', I can say that I had an equal mix of conservative and religious professors along with the liberals. It was a nice mix. I never got in trouble for espousing liberal views in conservative classes, and I never saw any conservative or religious students get punished for using their views.
Perhaps Dirk is correct and you weren't applying your Christianity to the topic correctly.
December 6, 2007
10:24 AM
Hogar De Vuelta (العودة) writes:
That was me at 433. For some reason I lose my info every time I post.
benn,
I would fully expect that Colorado would be a very different experience. Mine was East Coast in the 80s when the liberal faculty was having a cow about Reagan and Star Wars.
Dirk,
All my negative experiences were in my humanities classes. Some were fair, but after a few run ins with some real Communists, and I mean real Communists, I think the whole Reagan thing made them unglued, I stopped any disclosure of either my Christianity or my political views. It was simply not worth getting Ds. And yes I got real Ds and the rest of my work was As.
And Bennish created a very real hostile environment with kids. As a teacher in the classroom, he had an employment responsibility to first of all do his job, and second of all to not create a hostile environment regarding his personal beliefs. I am all in favor that he should be allowed to do and say whatever he wants when he is not teaching, and the reality is that does not exist either.
I blog anonymously because the bottom line in this day and age is that few people can afford to ruffle any feathers, because the PC police control the largest segment of our workforce, the public servants.
Jay,
The 1st amendment tells the GOVEFRNMENT what it can't do, the founders NEVER intended it to be a restriction on the speech of CITIZENS.
To all, if you want to hear a 13 year old on the other end of the spectrum, take a listen to what I found on the internet.
http://www.ksbj.org/eblogs/morningShow/
December 6, 2007
8:11 PM
Mary Roberts writes:
What responsible parent in their 40's does this kind of thing? Should the mother be charged? YES! What if someone did this to her precious angel? What kind of Adult will her little darling grow up to be? I would say she at least needs a mental health exam!
December 6, 2007
8:13 PM
Mary Roberts writes:
What responsible parent in their 40's does this kind of thing? Should the mother be charged? YES! What if someone did this to her precious angel? What kind of Adult will her little darling grow up to be? I would say she at least needs a mental health exam!