Authorities investigated a series of alarming tweets at an N.J. school last week.
NORTH CALDWELL -- An unfounded threat that jeopardized a New Jersey school's pep rally and homecoming game can be traced back to a social media miscommunication, school officials say.
"It was kind of like that game of telephone," West Essex Regional School District Superintendent Barbara Longo said in a phone interview Monday.
According to North Caldwell Police Chief Mark Deuer, a freshman student was talking to a group of seniors at school on Wednesday saying he had a surprise for them during pep rally. Rumors, that police say turned out to be unfounded, spread around the school saying that the surprise was a school shooting, Deuer said.
Another student tweeted a message Wednesday evening saying he hoped the rumors about pep rally were true, with several gun emoticons, Deuer said. That, and other messages about the rumor, got retweeted by a large percentage of the student body, he said.
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"Once it started being retweeted...it reached almost the entire school within half an hour," Deuer said. "That was obviously what caused the mass hysteria."
As kids received tweets about the threat, they alerted their parents, who called school administrators, Longo said. The school district and local police launched an all-night investigation into the threat, officials said.
Police interviewed the tweeters and their families until they traced the original source of the rumor, the freshman boy with the surprise. As it turned out, he had been planning to perform a wrestling move on his friend in front of the school during the pep rally, Deuer said.
What the students originally said "ended up being something so totally different" from what was being tweeted, Longo said. "It was just a complete miscommunication that (turned into something else) on social media."
"The boys involved are getting some help," and "creating a false public alarm" charges are pending against one of them, Deuer said.
The district posted an announcement to parents on its website Thursday indicating that the threat was not deemed credible, and that the school day and the events would proceed as planned.
"The original threat was largely circumstantial and propagated and exacerbated by social media," the post said.
Police and school officials met parents outside the school Thursday morning to assure them that the threat was not viable, and to answer their questions about what happened, police said.
According to Deuer, the police department is investigating an increasing number of incidents involving social media.
"We can't take anything too lightly," he said. The spreading of online rumors "happens all too often."
To help combat it, local police departments have annual conversations with the student body about the permanency of online postings, Deuer said. According to Longo, they are part of ongoing conversations West Essex has with students about the risks associated with online communication.
Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
