2 teens held for IM threats

Two northern Virginia boys, 13 and 15, arrested in the past two weeks for sending threats via instant-messaging, were still being held this weekend, the Washington Post reports. The 15-year-old, "a popular freshman," according to the Post, "sent an anonymous IM to a friend, threatening to harm her and others at school. She told her parents that night, and police evacuated Yorktown [High School] the next day, swarming the school before the boy turned himself in. He is being held without bond ... on a felony charge of making a written threat to kill." The 13-year-old, in a separate case, has been charged with the same felony, as well as a misdemeanor for harassment by computer, for similar IM-carried threats that led to an afternoon of lockdown at his middle school. "The arrests have exposed a new gray area for teenagers, the Post adds. "They live in an age when it is delectably easy to use an anonymous screen name to freak out their friends - and in a society that has learned the hard way to take threats of violence seriously." For more on IM-ing, see "IM anthropology: 11-to-15-year-olds' virtual community" and "Parents write: Pluses/minuses of kids' IM-ing" in my newsletter. Post (below) or email your comments on and experiences with this anytime!