Students Cyber Threatened at Wauwatosa West and East

By Mary Alice Carroll

On Sunday night, February 1^st, many students from Wauwatosa East and West High Schools’ found a mysterious ‘friend request’, from the Wauwatosa Bug, when they logged on to their Facebook pages that night.  Immediately after accepting the Bug’s request, they began to be harassed and threatened which caused security scares at the schools on Monday.

It ia now known that the Wauwatosa Bug was a former student from Tosa West who is living in California.  This practical joke caused huge scares for these students and families.  There were many students who were threatened that there was going to be a, “blood bath,” the next day at school.

A junior from Tosa East, Maggie Groose, explained that, “Monday was a really crazy day.  There were tons of police all over the school, and some people didn’t even show up to school.”  These cyber threats made many parents decide to keep their students home.  Maggie’s mom Jane said, “I sent Maggie to school, but I was a bit worried.  The threat seemed to be a bit more seriously than a practical joke.  I don’t understand why anyone would do that.”

Groose also said that, “school went on as usual, and we were all relived at the end of the day when nothing happened.”  This generation has had to take school security threats extremely serious. Advisors at Tosa East and West took many steps to keep their schools safe.  On Wednesday the 3^rd, police made an arrest of a former freshman at Tosa West.  The freshman had moved to California, and police were able to track them down.

Dominican student Peter Hergenrother said that, “if someone was threatening me online like that I would think it would be a joke at first, but what happened at Tosa was kind of extreme.”  Dominican High School has thankfully never had a major security scare of this kind before, but would be prepared if it were to happen.  Luckily the threats at Wauwatosa were not serious, and no one was hurt.