The high school notified all parents that there had been a threat. That should have been the end of it, but of course it wasn’t. The police came out to investigate JS but concluded that JS hadn’t made a threat. The friend shared the screenshot with another peer, who shared it with his parent, who told the school principal, who told the school superintendent and police.
He took it down in 5 minutes, saying that it was a “probable false alarm.” In the interim, one of the friends screenshotted it.
Student 1 posted the first meme as a Snapchat story, where it was seen by 20-40 of his friends. Of course, the reason why we’re reading the judicial opinion is that this 1:1 conversation escaped its confines. But so long as this conversation stays exclusively between JS and Student 1, it’s relatively benign and inconsequential. Once again, this kind of nonsense chatter hurts the brains of older generations, who no longer understand why teens waste their time with peer mocking of this nature. I WILL TRY TO TAKE ALIVE AND TIE HIM UP AND EAT HIM.” The quote was attributed to Student Two, who was singing lyrics by Cannibal Corpse.”
As part of the Snapchat conversation, JS sent two “memes” to Student 1:
(TIL: Cannibal Corpse is a death metal band from the 1990s). JS thought Student 2 looked like a school shooter based on his hair and his wearing a “Cannibal Corpse” t-shirt. During downtime at home, high schoolers JS and “Student 1” gossiped about their peer “Student 2” via private Snapchat.