Internet Harassment

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. (AP) — City officials unanimously passed a measure making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet.
The six-member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor on Wednesday, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier's death.

"It is our hope that by supporting one of our own in Dardenne Prairie, we can do our part to ensure this type of harassing behavior never happens again, anywhere," Fogarty said, adding, "after all, harassment is harassment regardless of the mechanism or tool."

Several dozen people broke into applause after the measure was passed.
Authorities have said they could not find a crime to charge anyone with in the case of Meier, who thought she had met a good-looking 16-year-old boy on the social networking site MySpace last year. But he began sending her mean messages and others joined in, her family said, then abruptly ended their friendship.

Megan hanged herself within minutes of receiving the last messages on Oct. 16, 2006, and died the next day.

Megan's parents, Ron and Tina Meier, learned about six weeks after Megan's death that the boy, Josh Evans, was not real. The boy was created by a mother down the street who wanted to know what Megan was saying about her own daughter, who had had a falling out with Megan.

Her father said he found a message from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.

The four-page measure defines both harassment and cyber-harassment, essentially making it illegal to engage in a pattern of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to suffer "substantial emotional distress," or for an adult to contact a child under 18 in a communication causing a reasonable parent to fear for the child's well-being.

City attorney John Young said constitutionally protected activity would be exempt. The measure would apply when one of the people communicating was in Dardenne Prairie.

During a break in the meeting, Fogarty embraced Megan's mother with tears in her eyes. She said she was sorry there had not been a law previously in place to prosecute Megan's harassers.

Tina Meier said she was thrilled that the city had passed the new measure.
"This is not a stopping point," she said. "We're not done."

City officials also passed a resolution encouraging state and federal officials to outlaw cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking. A state lawmaker has questioned how state law could be altered without running afoul of First Amendment issues.






Wow.. Comments?

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

So basically, just dont harrass people in that one city and you will be fine. Or do you have to actually live in that city to recieve the punishment?

I understand the overall reasoning for them to do it, but it will never EVVVVVVVVVER (y2j) work. You know how many spineless dorks are going to flood this new system with "He LOL'd and PWN'd at me when I told him the girl didnt like me"

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

I was less concerned with the law. A couple questions this raised in my mind.

1. At what point is it the parents responsibilities to monitor childrens internet activity? Because I know if I have kids ha, they ain't gettin' shit mostly.

2.What's up with that? If this "Josh Evans" is a mother down the street, what the fuck is she doing telling a kid the world would be a better place without her? That's disgraceful.

3. Why did the mother down the street care so much? I mean it's a fact of life, did she miss the memo that said Middle School aged girls fight? All The Time.

4. How would you feel if you were the mother down the street? How would you even begin to say you're sorry to Megans parents?

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

SS, the mother that was "Josh Evans" has refused to apoligize and even asked the parents of the dead girl to stop going to the media about the whole issue.

If you ask me that mother should be ridiculed and shit on for the rest of her life for lowering herself to a 14 year old mentality

Blitzkrieg

They should just hire a hitman to take care of her. Afterall, the world would be a better place without her.

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

Police rarely need to patrol the small suburban town of Dardenne Prairie, Missouri. Its affluent residents are mainly law-abiding professionals whose children play safely behind the picket fences of smart houses in upmarket roads. 'Small and quaint' is how it describes itself.

But last night the St Charles County Sheriff's Department was on alert. Feelings are running high in this tight-knit community. And the focus was on one home in Waterford Crystal Drive and a planned candlelit vigil outside by parents and children with placards reading 'Justice for Megan'. 'It's all we can do,' says Tina Meier. 'It's for Megan.'

Megan Meier was Tina's daughter. She was vulnerable, a little overweight, suffered from depression and she was only 13. About a year ago she persuaded her parents to let her have an account on the social networking site MySpace. And on it she met Josh Evans, 16 and handsome, who told her she was 'beautiful'.

Six weeks later she was dead - found by her distraught parents hanging from a beam in her bedroom closet. After weeks of kind compliments, Josh had suddenly turned. He'd called her 'mean' and said he'd heard she was nasty to her friends.

Others then joined in the online onslaught, saying she was 'fat' and a 'whore'. For Megan, who, says her mother, had been regularly bullied and 'had been striving for years for a boy to like her,' the rejection was too much.

But Josh never existed. He was made up. And, in another cruel twist made public for the first time last week, he was apparently the creation of the mother of one of Megan's friends who lived four doors away in Waterford Crystal Drive.

What is more, despite both police and FBI investigations, Megan's embittered parents have been told that Lori Drew, 48, the woman they accuse of causing the death of their 'goofy, bouncy and beautiful daughter,' faces no charges. Cyberspace, it seems, has outpaced the law.

'We've been told there is no law to 'fit'. That is why this vigil is so important,' Tina, a real estate agent told The Observer. 'I cannot do anything to bring her back. But what I can do is press for change. And I get comfort from the fact that a tightening of the law will be Megan's legacy and protect other children from this ever happening again.'

The allegation, according to Tina and Megan's father Ron, and also contained in a report filed by the St Charles County Sheriff's Department, is that Drew perpertrated this heartless online hoax to win Megan's confidence and establish if she was badmouthing her own daughter, Sarah, now 15.

For a year the Meiers kept quiet on their attorney's advice. Last week they broke their silence for the first time. Prosecutors say the case is complicated, and there is no way of proving why this young girl took her life, though they may re-examine if there is new evidence.

But the allegation, and lack of action, has bewildered and enraged America. Virtual vigilantism has taken over. Irate bloggers have posted details of Drew and her husband Curt, 51, on the internet identifying their home and telephone number and details of their jobs, his as a manager in a local factory, hers as an ad saleswoman.

The couple, now bombarded with hate mail and reportedly receiving death threats, have remained silent on legal advice.

Now Dardenne Prairie is turning on them. They are shunned by neighbours. They have had a brick through their window and been subjected to a paintball attack and false 911 calls. Last week the town's board of aldermen unanimously passed a law making cyber-harassment a misdeamenour with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and/or a $500 fine.

'It's not much,' admitted Mayor Pam Fogarty, who hugged a tearful Tina Meier after the vote; her own daughter went to the same school as Megan and she was due to join the candlelit vigil. 'But it's a start. We intend to press for changes to the state and federal laws.'

Tina, now in the process of divorcing Ron, concedes Lori Drew may not have thought of the consequences of her actions. But, she says, Megan had had a 'typical teenager' on-off-on-again friendship with her own daughter, had regularly slept over at their house and accompanied them on family outings. Drew knew of Megan's emotional problems, for which she was receiving counselling and medication.

'She might as well have held a gun to her head. She thought it was funny, she thought it was a game. I just want them behind bars,' Tina said. 'She was an adult and she preyed on and stalked a child, posing as a 16-year-old boy. She messed with her. She screwed with her mind. She lifted her up and then crushed her right back down.'

'I hear she's receiving death threats and that she's been besieged in their home. But I don't feel one ounce sorry for her for the repercussions in any shape or form. I intend to fight to the bitter end to see her prosecuted.'

Beaker

I remember hearing this when it first happened. That woman is a sick twisted individual. She should be ashamed of herself, and I hope the torment that is brought upon her doesn't stop. What a pathetic, poor excuse of a mother and human being

U MAD

Swamps

I agree with both Blade and Beaker.

That was totally uncalled for and there should be some kind of punishment brought upon the woman that caused this incident. How in the hell can any grown person do something like that to a child and then refuse to apologize.