When you’re young, it’s possible to make mistakes that end up affecting your life for the foreseeable future. In many cases, young people who make errors in judgment don’t realize how serious their errors are until it’s too late to do anything about them. For instance, making threats against people, whether you have the ability to carry those threats out or not, could land you in hot water with the law.
Take for example this case involving a student who could face time in prison for a threat he made on social media. The student who goes to Powhatan High School has been charged with a felony for a social media threat against the school. According to the story from Oct. 12, the Powhatan County Sheriff’s Office described the threat as being credible.
The student allegedly threatened to cause serious bodily harm to several people on the school property. This threat is a Class 6 felony. Despite claiming that the threat was credible, the investigation showed that the juvenile didn’t have any immediate way to carry them out. The authorities’ information contradicted the school’s press release, too. Initially, a statement released by the school system had stated that the threat was vague and couldn’t be considered credible at all. If convicted of the crime, the student could face up to five years in prison.
It’s important for minors to understand the impact making a threat on social media can have. It has the potential to spread among others quickly through sharing online, making it hard to eliminate the threat by deleting it. Even an angry post could come back to bite a person who didn’t mean what he or she said.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Powhatan High School student charged with felony following social media threat on school,” Laura McFarland, Oct. 12, 2017