Carbondale Student Threatens to Kill Resource Officer on Facebook
By: Shannon Murphy
Updated: February 26, 2013
Caution: Be careful what you post on facebook. A 16 year old Carbondale teen is now facing serious charges after threatening to kill a police officer.
Officer Rebecca Clark with the Carbondale Police Department says, "I was upset and mostly because I never dealt with her. I didn't know her. I couldn't even tell you what she looked like."
Rebecca Clark is an officer with the Carbondale Police Department. Her daily beat is the Carbondale High School. She says last week a student received a prank call. The caller claimed to be Officer Clark and told the teen she needed to answer some questions about a report of vandalism. The teen took her frustrations to facebook, writing derogatory comments about Clark, taking it as far as stating "I kill her dead with her own gun."
"Luckily I have a really good relationship with some of the students there and the faculty as well and as soon as they saw it, because once you put something on facebook everybody can see it, so as soon as they saw it they were able to notify me and I was able to handle it accordingly," explains Clark.
The 16 year old teen was charged with terroristic threats and harassment and is currently locked up at a juvenile detention center. This isn't the first time a Lackawanna County student has been in trouble with the law for using social media for the wrong reasons. Earlier this month, Scranton Prep senior Torre Scrimalli sent a tweet threatening to blow up two high schools if a fight broke out during a basketball game.
Clark says over the last five years working at the Carbondale Area School District, this is the first threat she has received of this magnitude. She hopes her story will teach others a little lesson about social media manners, "Anything you put on facebook, once you put it on there it's out there. People take screen shots before you even take it down, it stays."
Clark says she is in favor of police officers working in school districts and she has never been concerned for her safety.
As for
the juvenile in custody, a hearing has been set for Tuesday afternoon.


