Ah, wasn’t it much simpler when kids just spread outrageous lies about each other through bathroom graffiti?
Instead, four teens allegedly created a Facebook profile for Laura Cook’s son. The page, which featured the teen’s name, photo and cell phone number, claimed that the boy was having sex with other boys and made racist remarks, including one about President Barack Obama. The fake profile might have been nasty and crude, but it was popular, quickly collecting at least 580 online friends.
The page has since been taken down, but Cook, a Chicago-area mom, isn’t satisfied. She filed a lawsuit this week in a county circuit court, claiming that her son was defamed and his reputation damaged, theChicago Tribune reported.
The lawsuit lists the teen defendants only by their initials, R.C., A.G., K.Z., and M.S. Cook is asking for unspecified damages.
Thanks to her fast-texting fingers, an Atlanta-area teenager alerted her friends to rescue her from a sexual assault.
The 16-year-old girl was walking home when a stranger jumped out of a car, grabbed her and forced her into the woods, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While her head was being held down, the teen managed to text a friend for help, police said. As the girl’s buddies arrived, the suspect and two other men fled the scene.
On Tuesday, police arrested Jose Hernandez-Ruiz and charged him with kidnapping and sexual battery for the Aug. 20 attack.
A 40-year-old Missouri woman allegedly settled an argument she had with a teen and her mother by resorting to Craigslist. Elizabeth A. Thrasher is accused of posting a photo of the girl, 17, her email address and cell phone number in the “Casual Encounters” section of the Web site. Craigslist sure is more effective than bathroom graffiti — the teen became inundated with text messages and porn photos on her phone.
Thrasher has been charged with cyberbullying, the Associated Press reported. It’s the first felony cyberbullying charge in Missouri since the state passed a law after the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier. She hanged herself in 2006 after she was the victim of a hoax on MySpace.
The teen is the daughter of Thrasher’s ex-husband’s girlfriend. Authorities said it wasn’t clear what started the argument.
Teens have been doing it, now it’s teachers’ turn.
A Detroit-area middle school teacher allegedly sent 10 sexually explicit text messages and a partially nude photo of herself to one of her 14-year-old students. Michelle Simsonson, 28, has been charged with enticing a minor for immoral purposes and distributing sexually explicit material to a minor.
Simsonson had been the boy’s teacher during the past school year, but has since resigned from Sashabaw Middle School, the Detroit Free Press reported. She was arraigned in court last week.
The boy told investigators that he and his teacher began texting each other in the fall, but then the content became more sexually explicit. He said he told her to stop and that there was never physical contact between the two.
If convicted, Simsonson faces up to four years in prison.
The three children told police that they were so uncomfortable with their nanny that they locked themselves in a bathroom to avoid her. Aza Hrnjic, 22, a nanny in suburban Washington, D.C., is accused of showing porn to the kids and urging them to pose nude in front of a Web camera.
Hrnjic has been charged with child abuse and is being held on $350,000 bond, the Washington Post reported. The kids under her care were a 5-year-old boy and two girls ages 10 and 12. Hrnjic had been working at the home in Hyattsville, Md., for about a month and a half.
The kids told police that they refused to pose in front of the Web camera. Hrnjic allegedly had sexually explicit conversations with them and showed them porn from Web sites.
Alexa Longueira, 15, was getting ready to send a text message when she dropped into an open manhole in Staten Island on Wednesday. Workers had opened the manhole to flush a high-pressure sewer line, authorities said. Alexa happened to be walking with a friend, but it seems that friend didn’t warn her about the danger.
Alexa’s mom told the NY Daily News that the teen suffered scrapes on her back, arms and shoulders. It’s unclear whether Alexa managed to ever send that all-important message.
In happier days, Tyler Deccio, 18, received nude photos of his 15-year-old girlfriend. Once the Everett, Wash., couple broke up, Tyler allegedly posted the X-rated pics on MySpace, along with the girl’s name and crude comments.
After the girl went to the cops, Tyler was arrested on felony charges of suspicion of harassment and posting nude photos of a minor. Tyler appeared in court on Wednesday, where he told the judge that he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him, KING TV News reported.
Tyler is just the latest kid to be arrested on sexting charges. Read about other cases here.
Now that Nebraska is no longer a legal dumping ground for kids, some moms are getting desperate; on Friday, one meth-addicted mother tried to give away her toddler on Craigslist.
The ad was posted in the “volunteers” section of the Omaha Craigslist on Friday morning, according to the Omaha World-Herald. (The ad has since been removed.) Under the subject line “help my baby,” the mother, who has not been identified, pleaded: ”he is adorable. . . . (He) deserves a mommy that is not addicted to Meth . . . unfortunately I am!…I am scared . . . I am desperate . . . can anyone help me . . . can anyone help (him)? PLEASE. . . BEFORE I do something CRAZY!”
A caller to a child abuse hotline alerted authorities, who found the mother and removed the one and a half year old from her custody. The mother, who is in her 20s, is being investigated by police, and a judge will determine if the child should remain in foster care.
In 2008, as Minor Troubles readers will recall, Nebraska suffered a rash of parents relinquishing kids, some as old as teenagers, since its safe haven law had no age limit. In November 2008, legislators changed the law so that only a baby in the first month of life could be given up with no questions asked.
The two brothers, ages nine and 11, were struggling over a shotgun after an argument over video games. During the fight, the older boy accidently shot and killed his brother, according to officials near Jackson, Miss.
“The younger brother allegedly got mad because he got beat at some video games and got the gun,” Marshall County Sheriff Kenny Dickerson told the Associated Press. The boys’ father was apparently outside mowing the lawn when the shooting occurred on Tuesday. He told authorities that the gun was kept unloaded in a closet.
Sex offenders aren’t the only danger that computers present to kids. Children are tripping over cables, being zonked on the head by falling monitors or getting tangled up in all the electronics.
That’s according to researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Injuries caused by computers that required hospital emergency room attention jumped 732 percent from 1994 to 2006. Children under five are the most vulnerable.
The computer danger is similar to the one posed by TVs, which have caused severe head injuries and even death when young kids knock them over.
Experts recommend these tips to make computers and other home electronics safer:
– Push the computer against the wall and keep away from walkways.
– Anchor cables and cords. Install safety covers on unused electrical outlets.
– Push the computer away from the edge of the desk so it won’t topple over easily.
– Allow kids to use the computer only with adult supervision. Don’t put the computer in a play area.
Photo by Karin Dalziel