Parents outraged after cop uses High School students' MySpace pages for Internet safety assembly

[ccharles000]

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080820/UPDATES01/80820016

Students and parents at Windsor High School are outraged after a Wyoming police officer doing an Internet safety presentation at the school scrutinized individual students’ MySpace pages, calling the students “slutty” and saying photos on their sites invited sexual predators.


The officer, John F. Gay III of the Cheyenne Police Department, picked out six or seven Windsor High School students’ MySpace page and began to criticize photos, comments and other content until one student left the room crying

“He told the entire student body that he had shared her info with a sexual predator in prison,” said Ty Nordic, whose daughter Shaylah Nordic’s MySpace page was put on display.

Nordic said Gay then told the student body that the predator said he would masturbate to her picture.

Shaylah Nordic then left the room as Gay pulled up her phone number and called
her on stage to demonstrate how easy it was to get a hold of contact information via the Internet.

“He told about a story about a girl in another state who was tracked through MySpace who was raped and shot and then said Shaylah’s page is inviting people to do the exact same things to her,” Nordic said.

[donco6]

1. Is he related to someone on Reno 911?

Because it sounds like something they would do.

[elehhhhna]

2. Fired first, then sued if possible. He's the one exploiting that girl for her

Myspace page, far as I can tell.

[dkofos]

3. Sick fuck

[snooper2]

4. That's pretty rough...shouldn't have used individual students

But I bet the message got across

[slackmaster]

6. Every kid in that room learned an invaluable lesson

It may have saved someone's life.

[zazen]

8. gotta agree, though he should have blotted out names/faces

[slackmaster]

9. That would have been pretty easy to do, and the presentation would still have been effective

I have to agree on that; although anything on MySpace is available to anyone connected to the Internet. Once you put your face out there, it's pretty much public information.

[slackmaster]

5. Officer Gay is my Short-Duration Personal Savior

We need more courageous cops like him.

[peacetalksforall]

7. Any means to an end? You are sick, imo. Any smart person could have

made his case without excoriating the young children. Were their parents asked - did they approve? I say sue the stupid man and the city for his and their drama presentation that abused the children. NO SMARTS. NO SUPERVISION. IT APPEARS THIS PERSON NEEDS TO BE SUPERVISED AND WATCHED.

Yes, the children need supervision and counseling, but not this crap and abuse.

I would like to hear that there is a lawsuit or that he cannot work in his career again.

[slackmaster]

10. Now, now, let's not make this personal

You aren't qualified to call me "sick" even if it's just your baseless personal opinion. Truly "higher class" people don't make statements like that.

Civility. Get some.

[peacetalksforall]

13. OK. Let me change that. You are not a sick person, but what you said about this

particular issue and your approval is sick, imo.

[zazen]

14. texting/posting videos on MySpace is publishing, to 3, 3000, or 3 million

If she was selling herself in a sex chat ad in the back of a magazine, and he brought that up, would that have been fair game? It was public domain, wasn't it?

The problem with all of this is that we all did dumbass shit when we were adolescents, but it wasn't published across space and time. One instantiation 30 years ago of trying to publish stupid girl bullying was "slam books," which were banned--remember those? But we had the relative privacy of our high schools and hometowns in which to screw up and learn from it and get another chance. These kids don't get that they're creating document trails and communicating personal information to far flung strangers. Now when they screw up, it is amplified by a factor of 1000.

[peacetalksforall]

19. I don't think we're talking about myspace, at least not me - I'm talking about

the utterly idiotic and presumptive way he handled their privacy in that presentation and especially the prison release.

If it were up to me - I would do everything to talk kids out of doing the stupid things they do and write on myspace - I would try to tell them that that stuff is going to be in a government database for as long as they live if the present people stay in power and this database building madness continues. I would try to talk to them about all the dangers - stalkers, crazed people, and eternal non-privacy.

They think it's so clever and cannot project out to the utter and real risks.

But, I'm talking that cop - he went about it all wrong. Those kids are shortsighted and they relish not being embarassed. The consequences of that kind of unauthorized exposure could affect someone very badly no matter what risks there are.

It's as bad as taking risks while driving - could lead to death.

But, the cop was batcrap crazed. He is more wrong than they for making the exposure worse. He is the worst example of a teacher.

[Solly Mack]

11. calling them "slutty" and that they "invite" sexual predators

That's nothing but blame the victim language. That's no different than saying she was dressed slutty and the sexual predator that raped her felt invited to do so

Sure, people should exercise caution on line - BUT...using the blame the victim language says something very disturbing about the cop.


And that's not the only thing about his actions that bothers me either.

[slackmaster]

12. I think he was calling a spade a spade

His approach was harsh, but he was factually correct.

He fed those teens the hard reality of adult perceptions.

[Solly Mack]

15. Alrighty then....that's good to know.

[Egalitariat]

17. I agree with you

nm

[aikoaiko]

16. Using students myspace pages as examples is fine - but he went over the top with scare tactics and..

...humiliation.

eta: there has to be a better was to communicate the seriousness of student vulnerability on the web. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt when I read he said the images were slutty and inviting attention from perverts, but telling them he gave their pictures to sex offenders for masturbation material is over the top.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. As well they should be. What a fathead.