Program Helps Teens Combat Cyber-bullying

One teenager continues to rebuild her life after being lured fromher home by a sexual predator using an Internet chat room.

Another sits in a juvenile detention center after threatening abully.

A third took his own life as a result of cyber-bullying.

Janene Holter shared these real-life stories with parents,teenagers and educators at Conyngham United Methodist Church onTuesday night, hoping to educate them to the dangers, not scarethem, she said.

Holter, a senior supervisory special agent for the state AttorneyGeneral's Office, presented the programs on Internet safety andcyber-bullying at the request of Pastor Lorelei Toombs, who realizedthe need in the community last year.

"Bullying is a huge deal," Toombs said, citing an incident at alocal school that led two children to fisticuffs.

Plus, a child's circle of friends is no longer small thanks tosocial-networking sites that allow them to communicate with 500"friends" at a time, instead of five, Toombs said.

Holter cautioned youngsters about their Facebook friends,especially if they're people they really don't know.

"If you've never met them or your parents don't know them,they're not your friend," she said. "Everyone on the Internet is nottheir friend."

Adult predators use social-networking sites, interactive gamingsystems and sites and Internet chat rooms to talk to children,Holter said. They pose as youngsters themselves and may even usedevices to change their voices, she said.

A man may befriend a young girl by pretending to be a young girl,she said. That's what happened to Alicia Kozakiewicz, who was in anInternet chat room for months with her friend, Christine, Holtersaid.

Her new friend wasn't a teenage girl, but a 38-year-old man andsexual predator who lured her from her suburban Pittsburgh home andtook her across state lines to his apartment where she was raped,beaten, tortured and displayed on the Internet.

Ironically, the live video the man streamed on the Internet ishow authorities tracked him down and how they found Kozakiewiczchained in his apartment, Holter said.

"They want you to scream, cry, beg for your life and plead todie," Kozakiewicz said in a video Holter played.

"They pass you around to their friends. They want a piece of you.Those pieces are hard to get back.

"My life will never be normal," she said. "There will always besomething missing."

Parents need to know what their children are doing on theInternet and should have all of their passwords to monitor theirusage, Holter said. And computers should not be in a child's room,but in a common room of the house, she said.

School-age children should not be in Internet chat rooms ordisclosing any personal information, including where they live or goto school, with a stranger on the Internet, Holter said. Shereminded them of stranger danger lessons learned when they wereyounger, and told them those lessons apply to people on theInternet, too.

Holter also cautioned youths about taking nude photos ofthemselves on cell phones for their boyfriend or girlfriend becausethey're in love. These photos often are forwarded to others orshared on the Internet after a break-up, she said.

"Do not take these kinds of photos," Holter said. "Please respectyourself and respect your bodies."

There also have been incidents where the photos have been takenin locker rooms or at slumber parties, she said. The photos don'tleave a phone or computer just because they've been deleted either,Holter said.

She also told the teens to be careful when posting on sites likeFacebook because colleges, employers and the military look at thosesites to learn more about the person and if they want themrepresenting their organization.

"These pages will be with them for a long, long time," Holtersaid.

People also have taken photos off a person's Facebook page andused them to friend other people, and people have lost jobs becausesomeone copied and used their photos in advertisements, she said.

Holter also told those gathered not to take a photo with a GPS-enabled phone and load it to Facebook, because it will load with thelongitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Likewise,Facebook will use a cell phone number to locate where the phone islocated.

Technology has made it easy for bullies to target others with"mean, nasty posts" or text messages, or cyber-bullying, she said.

"If a child gets a nasty text message or a post, tell them not torespond to it," Holter said. "We want them to remain a victim."

A school district or local police department can take actionagainst a bully on behalf of the victim, but once the child respondswith an equally nasty text or post, they have become a bullythemselves, she explained.

That's what happened to Gabby, a seventh-grader who was thetarget of older girls' vicious attacks. She didn't tell a teacher orher parents, but decided with a friend to take matters into theirown hands and fight back, trying to end it.

The girls hoped to scare the older girls off, and posted aboutbringing a gun to school. The following day, state police showed upat school and took Gabby into custody, looking for the gun.

She never had a gun and tried to explain that she was a victim ofa bully, Holter said. Instead, she was charged with terroristicthreats and committed to a juvenile detention center.

"It's more than just words," she said. "Words mean something."

Holter said there are usually three people involved in bullyingcases - the victim, the bully and the bystander. She asked what kindof a bystander the teens attending would be.

One young man's friends knew he was being targeted by a bully butdidn't do anything about it, Holter said. The young man ended hisown life.

"If his five friends cared and forwarded the messages, talked toa school official or his parents, Jeff would still be with us,"Holter said.

The rate of suicides has gone up, and 33 percent of childrendon't want to go to school because of bullying, she said. Again,going back to early lessons learned, Holter told the youths if theydon't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything.

"Not everyone has to be best friends, but they do have to co-exist," she said. "We're all equal in this room."

Wayne Oberst, leader of Boy Scout Troop 207, said he doesn't knowhow to turn on a computer, but knew his troop needed to attend thisseminar.

"It's the thing that's going on today. The boys are involved init," he said. "I want to bring the boys up to date. Hopefully, ifsomething happens, they'll get the proper authorities involved."

Heidi Kline, youth group leader at the church, believes parentsneed to be aware and know what their children are doing on thecomputer, with an iPod and cell phones. She has five children 19 andunder, and knows her children's passwords, she said.

"It's very scary," she said. "You have to be aware."

Holter noted that these educational seminars are offered free toschools and church organizations, and anyone interested in learningmore should contact the Attorney General's Office at 1-800-525-7642.

kmonitz@standardspeaker.com