Keeping Kittitas County's residents safe in cyber space

By CHELSEA KROTZER
staff writer
ELLENSBURG — They were friends in high school. The best of friends, until they got into an argument, resulting in one, “Jessica,” being cast out from the group.

But it wasn’t over. The other one was still bitter and wanted revenge.

She created a fake MySpace page with fake photos paired with Jessica’s personal information — including disclosing her cell phone number. The profile also promised a sexual interlude with anyone who called.

“It was a horrible profile,” Jessica said. “I only found out about it because I got quite a few phone calls from guys wanting to meet up with me.”
Thankfully, one of the guys told her about the site. Then Jessica called the police.

“They weren’t threatening her harm and weren’t stealing, in theory, her identity, but it fit for cyber-stalking because the site was obviously designed to torment and embarrass her,” said Ellensburg Police Department Det. Drew Hauk.

Hauk said detectives were able to determine who posted the Web site and the girl eventually admitted to the crime.

“We had to impress upon them that pictures and identifying information and phone numbers of the victim, that places her in pretty big danger because people — pedophiles and predators — do troll the Internet,” Hauk said. “If someone had come across this, if they had found that profile, they could have potentially come to Ellensburg or been in Ellensburg and victimized her.”

EPD Capt. Dan Hansberry said cases like this, where people create fake social networking accounts to either embarrass or pretend to be someone else, happens quite frequently in Ellensburg.

“What most people don’t realize is that cyber-stalking is illegal,” Hansberry said.

Under state law, cyber-stalking is a gross misdemeanor, unless someone has a prior record — then it could be a class C felony charge.

Hansberry said the EPD does not have a lot of statistics related to cyber-stalking or cyber-bullying. What they do know is that it happens far more than it is reported.

“It’s somewhat sporadic, we may get a couple calls a month, we may go a month without getting a single call,” Hansberry said. “And that has a lot to do with the fact people don’t realize that there is something they can do.”

Keeping safe

Central Washington University Patrol Officer Marc McPherson said cyber-stalking is an issue wherever you are — especially on a college campus.

“The ones we deal with the most are social network pages, phones or text messaging,” McPherson said.

McPherson said even though it is not reported, he is sure it happens daily.

When it is reported, it often falls under a different call category, making it difficult to keep statistics.

For example, if someone posed as someone else on a social networking page, that could go under identity theft.

“I don’t think it’s something they think right away that they should call the police on them,” McPherson said. “They automatically ignore it and think it will go away before they think to report to us, which is why I think we don’t get too many reports.”

Local middle and high school officials say they haven’t had to deal with many issues with cyber-bullying or cyber-stalking this year.

Then again, they can only deal with cases that are actually reported to them.

“I can think of maybe one incident maybe last year of a student posting bad stuff about another student on Facebook or MySpace,” said School Resource Officer Tom Clayton. “I think it’s just not happening.”

This time a year ago, cyber-bullying was a predominant issue at EHS. Back then, there wasn’t an SRO.

“I don’t know if it’s contributed to my presence or not, but I haven’t seen it, or it hasn’t been reported to me very often, if at all,” Clayton said.

Over at Morgan Middle School, officials hope to keep their numbers of cyber-bullying issues low.

Principal Michelle Bibich said the school is bringing in a presentation to teach the students how to treat everyone with kindness — and how to stay safe on the Internet today (see related story).

“It’s not uncommon for students to send hurtful text messages,” Bibich said. “On occasion, we’ll be notified of something that is happening out on MySpace, which isn’t happening at school, but is still a serious matter.”

Bibich said cell phones are the biggest problem area.

“The biggest road block is that feeling of anonymity that a person gets with sending a text message,” Bibich said. “You’re not face to face. I don’t think students realize that someone real is on the other end.”

Bibich said she hopes to create an environment where people are rewarded for random acts of kindness.

“We want to make that the culture of the school,” Bibich said.

As for Jessica, she lost more than just a friend.

“I felt like it ruined a lot of things for me, just because the friendship was obviously severed — a friendship of 10 years was just gone,” Jessica said. “It makes you feel bad about yourself. People need to look themselves up on these Web sites and see if there is an alternate profile.”