A client of mine, who I’ll call Deanna, was a 15-year-old in the ninth grade at a public high school in North Carolina. She lived with her mother, who was unemployed, and two younger brothers in government-subsidized housing. She had never been in juvenile court, and had an unblemished school disciplinary record. She was struggling academically, however, in danger of failing algebra.
A rumor circulated among students that someone was going to “shoot up” the school on Dec. 21, the date signifying the end of the phase of the Mayan calendar thought by some to represent the end of the world.
The police officer assigned to the school interviewed several students to determine who started the rumor. A ninth-grade boy claimed he heard it from Deanna. When questioned, Deanna denied starting the rumor but admitted she had seen something about it on Facebook and mentioned it to her friends.
[For more of this story, written by Tamar Birckhead, go to http://jjie.org/op-ed-kiddie-c...to-juveniles/108006/]
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