The chat was allegedly created by a group of 8th-grade students and involved some of the juveniles expressing “hateful and racist comments" and a mock slave auction.

The chat was allegedly created by a group of 8th-grade students and involved some of the juveniles expressing “hateful and racist comments" and a mock slave auction.

Six juveniles in Massachusetts were charged in a racial online bullying incident that involved “heinous” language, threats of “violence toward people of color” and a mock slave auction, the district attorney for Hampden County said.

Students from Southwick, about 104 miles southwest of Boston, allegedly participated in a “hateful, racist online” Snapchat discussion between Feb. 8 and Feb. 9, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said in a statement on Facebook.

Gulluni said he became aware of the incident on Feb. 15 and immediately called on the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit to investigate.

On Thursday, at the conclusion of the investigation, the district attorney authorized members of the Detective Unit and the Chief of the Juvenile Court Unit to pursue criminal charges against the juveniles.

  • quindraco@lemm.ee
    417·
    8 months ago

    Gulluni said he has met personally with the victims and their families.

    This proves the article is garbage - if there are victims, the original described conduct of some racists having a group chat about racism can’t possibly be true. There has to be more to the real story.

    • frickineh@lemmy.world
      19·
      8 months ago

      Who were they pretending to auction and threatening violence against? Pretty sure those are the victims.

      • quindraco@lemm.ee
        516·
        8 months ago

        There are three possibilities, presupposing the threats are real:

        1. The threats were not specific (the article never claims specific theeats were made), in which case the victims either don’t exist or constitute every black person in America, and in either of those cases the victims could not be met with.
        2. The threats were specific and the specific targets were not in the chat (the article never claims anyone was in the chat except for the racists), in which case the “victims” do not legally qualify as victims and there is no case here (for a threat to be illegal you have to communicate it to your threatened target).
        3. The threats were specific and the targets were in the chat. That’s the only way this makes sense, which means the article utterly failed to tell us both that the threats were specific and that the victims were in the chat.

        So any way you slice it, this article is hot garbage.

    • YaBoyMax@programming.devEnglish
      610·
      8 months ago

      Had this exact thought as well. The article is so vague that it doesn’t actually describe what they seem to be getting charged with, so unless the DA is completely overstepping bounds (possible but unlikely) there has to be more to it.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        82·
        8 months ago

        All six were charged with threat to commit a crime, the district attorney said. Two of those juveniles were also charged with interference with civil rights, and one of the two was additionally charged with witness interference.

        From the article.

        • YaBoyMax@programming.devEnglish
          45·
          8 months ago

          Sorry, I phrased my comment poorly. What I meant was that the article doesn’t describe what specifically led to those charges, apart from a racist group chat of some kind.