Petaluma High School My Space Threats By East Coast Teen - SF Chron

This goes to show that you can't hide, even on the Internet. They got him.

Cops say East Coast teen admits MySpace threats

Warnings about shooting people at Petaluma High School keep 2/3 of students away

Jim Herron Zamora and Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

(05-09) 19:55 PDT PETALUMA -- Petaluma police said a 17-year-old boy from the East Coast admitted to posting prank MySpace messages -- threatening to shoot people at Petaluma High School -- that caused about two thirds of students to miss classes Wednesday.
Police said that the boy, who was not named, admitted using a stolen password to hack into the MySpace page of at least one Petaluma High School student and using the account to send prank messages on Tuesday night vowing to bring a gun to school Wednesday to shoot enough people to exceed the 33 deaths at Virginia Tech last month.
Late Tuesday, investigators traced the threats to a person 3,000 miles away, but police and school officials still took the matter seriously and warned parents. Educators decided not to cancel classes but they did beef up security and lock down the campus.
The message said:"Listen up you people, I'm sick of all your s -- . Tomorrow I'm going to school strapped and none of you can do anything to stop me. I'm beating the high score of 33 thanks to you f -- ."
Police said that the prankster, who was not arrested but will likely face criminal charges, is one of several internet users who have obtained passwords "for a variety of MySpace accounts." Police said the prankster told them that a number of other internet users have used the passwords to "post inappropriate and possibly criminal data" on the popular social networking site.
The prankster's threats were posted and re-posted to about 300 other Petaluma students with MySpace accounts, school administrators said.
The East Coast boy has no connection to Petaluma, police said in a statement, "and he had no intention of carrying out any violence."
Police declined to discuss what criminal charges the youth may face. He could possibly be prosecuted under federal or state law.
School administrators said they had to take the threats seriously and enacted an emergency plan.
"The police let us know (Tuesday) night that they had some leads that linked this to the East Coast, but we had to respect the police investigation and treat this as a potentially serious threat," said Dave Rose, head of student services for Petaluma City Schools. "Had this been clearly a threat we would have closed down the school totally."
Police and school officials posted several alerts on the school's web-site on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Administrators also received nearly 400 phone calls from concerned parents before school Wednesday.
As a result, only about half of the 1,650 students showed up for first-period classes. That dwindled to about 35 percent by second period because many parents pulled their children out of school because of the threats.