Two seventh-grade New Jersey girls have been pulled out of school and are allegedly facing charges after posting a 20-minute YouTube video said to include a list of over a dozen classmates they wanted to kill, and descriptions of how they would do it.
Details are scarce, since the names of the alleged threat-makers and their would-be victims are being withheld, and student-confidentiality laws prevent officials at Paterson Public School 27 in Paterson, N.J., from saying too much. The 20-minute video has been taken offline, though small snippets of it (with the girls’ faces blurred, but voices unaltered) were shown in a report from NBC4 in New York.
The video excerpts show one girl speaking, while another girl’s voice can occasionally be heard off-screen. The girl describes herself as an “assassin” and says things like, “I just know I think about [garbled] killing her … I don’t know why. She’s just annoying.”
The mother of one of the would-be victims said that, according to her daughter, the list started as part of an in-class writing exercise (which the teacher did not overhear). “My daughter said to her, ‘You want to kill me?’” She said, ‘Yes I want to kill you.’”
When parents complained, the video-maker was pulled out of school for the afternoon but returned the next day, in a different classroom. The following day, another student discovered the YouTube video. A spokesman for Paterson schools later said “We have assured these parents that we have taken this issue very seriously and are taking the necessary steps to address this issue.” However, parents allege that the school did nothing until after the parents themselves went to the police.
As of press time it is uncertain what will happen to the two alleged videomakers. NBC 4 repeated claims from unnamed parents that the two girls have been charged and are due to appear in court on Monday, though neither school nor police officials would confirm this. The local CBS station identified only parent by name: Angelica Marrero, whose daughter was mentioned on the threat list.
Photo of School 27 via Google Maps
