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| Some are calling Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino a hero for helping to take down a bully site |
Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino
Works To Crush Sexual, Bullying Facebook Site Targeting Girls at San Pedro High
School; Some Say He Was Wrong
By Diana L. Chapman
The minute
the Facebook site -- called San Pedro Ratchets -- launched last week, some San
Pedro High School girls found themselves posted there only in their bras and
underwear and targets of alleged sexual exploits.
Comments swarmed
in about their bodies and sexuality, officials said, that were "offensive,"
"raunchy" and "abusive." At least one student refused to return
to school after the site went up Dec. 2 as Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino,
school and law enforcement officials scrambled to take it down.
Within hours
of its launch, Buscaino's office was alerted by social media pings -- in
particular by a group called San Pedro California -- that called out alarm bells and began filing
complaints to no avail on a faceless Facebook requesting the site and two
others, San Pedro Hotties and Wilmington Ratchets, be removed, said Branimir
Kvartuc, Buscaino's media spokesman.
Around the
same time that evening, the councilman received a phone call from his upset
sister, Michelle Crow, a teacher at Dana Middle School, who complained one of
her former students was on it.
What he saw,
Buscaino said, was so offensive that he was immediately moved to action. He
later dismissed criticism he was out of his realm of council work and
interfering with free speech saying he didn't want to wait for something
terrible to happen. It takes a community, he said, including its leaders, to
stop such behavior. San Pedro High School principal Jeanette Stevens said
without him the site might still be thriving.
"I am
not going to wait for a teenager to commit suicide," Buscaino said. "There
are a lot of critical issues facing the city. But the last thing I want to do
is bury a child because of slander. It was really disgusting.
The site
"was slanderous, cyberbullying and some girls were being identified as a
"ho" (whore) or comments written were: "I want to do her," said
Buscaino, a former Los Angeles police officer known for his work with teens.
"It's something no child should ever go through."
As cyberbullying
has riveted the nation with some victims committing suicide, the ratchet site was
loaded with such slanderous comments, Buscaino's staff said, that they contacted
Facebook, law enforcement and Crimes Against Children on the Internet.
Comments
from the site -- due to profanity and sexual content -- could not be written
here, but it encouraged others to post photos and comments. "Bringin' all
the ratchet ...bitches of San Pedro on one page," and "upload all
the...ratchet bitches you know from the Dro!" (Dro is a term for San
Pedro.)
All three sites were taken down but immediately another site bloomed called South Bay Ratchets.
According to the Urban dictionary, ratchets are "a diva, mostly from urban
cities and ghettos, that has reason to believe she is every man's eye candy.
Unfortunately, she's wrong."
All the
sites were removed by Dec. 5, Kvartuc said.
High School principal
Stevens said she and her staff got warnings about the site via dozens of text
messages, phone calls and emails. A former high school student who was off to
college was so perturbed she contacted a school administrator. At least fifty
complaints were filed with Facebook, Stevens said, but dealing with
"Facebook is like a computer program without a face. It doesn't have
contacts where you can call and explain you are a principal or a school administrator
trying to protect children."
Some of the
photographs, Stevens said, were sexual and said things like: "This person
puts out." One photo had a girl laying down on her stomach, her pants
pulled back while other girls wrote on her buttocks. It appeared the girl was
tied up, she said.
"These
are images we don't need to promote," Stevens said. "There was
nothing good that was coming out of this. It was demeaning. We had young
students who are under age and made poor choices, but it doesn't mean we
exploit these poor choices."
Having the
help from the councilman, she added, was the big reason the sites were removed
because he and his staff knew who to contact and worked with all the agencies
involved. In addition, the principal and Kvartuc said it was ironic that
the community, using its own social media tools, alerted others to the site and
began filing complaints.
"Maybe
this is a little bit of norming of a social media tool," Stevens said.
"It was whether we took a stand. We stood up. We threw them off the island
as a community and I don't know if that's so bad."
The new
village watching over youth, said Kvartuc, is the social media pointing out that
San Pedro California's "thread" was what brought this to officials'
attention. One member Sandra Zuvich wrote: "I can't believe this is even a
page on Facebook. I have reported it and so should you! This is bullying at its
lowest."
While the
school is investigating who was responsible, a few leads have not panned out,
Stevens said, adding that she believes it will be handled by the Los Angeles police
since it did not happen on campus or during school time.
Facebook
officials did not immediately react to the complaint and initially refused to
take the site down because its policies had not been abused, Kvartuc said. But
as intensely personal comments criticizing the girls bodies piled on, Facebook
officials agreed it had become cyberbullying.
In a
statement, the company says it takes such abuse seriously.
"We're
concerned about any abusive behavior, and have made efforts to promote an
environment where everyone of Facebook can connect and share comfortably,"
said Alison Schumer, who handles child safety and programs for Facebook. "Our
policies prohibit the posting of content that bullies or harasses...
"This
team treats reports of harassing and bullying content as a priority."
On his Facebook
page, some hailed Buscaino as a hero while others contended he interfered with
free speech and had no business being involved in the matter. Some said the
girls were to blame because they had
allowed such photographs to be taken.
Parents, many argued, need to educate
themselves and their children about internet usage.
"I
guess I'm the bad guy because I think Joe and the LAPD should be addressing
other issues in our community," wrote Raul Martinez. "He might have
shut down that page...But those pics are still out there cause those girls
posted them on their page.
"This
all goes down to parenting and upbringing. Maybe Joe should tell every parent
in San Pedro to check your kids face book, take your kids to church, spend time
with your kids...(sic)."
Doug Epperhart,
a father of two teenage girls, said he too has concerns that a council member
can work to remove internet postings and claims it could become "a
slippery slope" leaving politicians with the idea that this could be done
elsewhere -- such as against their competitors.
"This
is more of the problem of the parents and the school," Epperhart said.
"Parents seriously have no clue what their kids are putting out there.
Removing the site does not eliminate the problem. It just treats the symptoms
of the disease. The district should be able to find out who these kids (who put
up the site) are and punish them."
The councilman's actions, however, were
largely applauded -- especially by women who say the damage to the girls would
remain with them for the rest of their lives and could cause suicidal
tendencies.
"Thank goodness!" wrote Layla
Cicconi of the site's removal. "That site had my blood boiling all day. I
was beginning to wonder if this town actually went to hell in a hand basket.
It's really amazing how many idiots think that site was funny. Makes me sad
that that Could even be a form of entertainment."
