HILO — Hawaii Island’s police chief said the decision to post extra officers on public school campuses Wednesday in Puna and Kona was made because social media “fed into the anxiety” of the community in the wake of perceived threats of possible gun violence made on the internet.
Chief Paul Ferreira noted Wednesday police had identified the juveniles thought responsible for the posts, “so having the officers at the schools was just an extra precaution, pretty much to get the community comfortable, because there was a lot of anxiety.”
“On social media, everybody was picking up on it and reading into it,” Ferreira said. “It fed into the anxiety, because people were calling in to our dispatch, to our Pahoa station and to our Kona station, trying to find out what’s going on.”
Capt. Samuel Jelsma, the Puna police commander, said two patrol officers and two community policing officers spent the school day Wednesday at Pahoa High School, while four other officers, including a reserve officer and a recruit, kept the peace at Keaau High and Intermediate schools.
“No issues today, no incidents,” Jelsma said.
Maj. Robert Wagner, Area II Operations commander in Kona, said there were six officers at Konawaena High School, including a school resource officer assigned to Konawaena Middle School, which is on the same campus. He said no unusual incidents occurred Wednesday at the Kealakekua school.
According to Wagner and Jelsma, overtime was minimal, because two Puna patrol officers were kept on duty three hours beyond the overnight shift, and a single Kona patrol officer earned an hour of overtime. All were assigned to take service calls to allow for the increased police presence at schools.
Social media frenzy?! It’s the mothers of this island who had it with their men’s gun obsession.
Some own even AK-47 and RPG launchers.
bull pucky
It is exactly SOCIAL MEDIA that is fueling many of these “shooters”.
Everyone wants to talk guns. OK. But, no one is asking the
tough questions like: WHY do these kids attack their schools?
I say that it is the very children that now want to march for gun control that are fueling the mixed up confused kids into doing it by bullying, deriding, putting them down, name calling, and the like on SOCIAL MEDIA.
Kids spend a better part of their day, before, during(when they can), and after school, commenting like “wasn’t Jimmy dressed funny today?”, or “Jimmy is so stupid, he got the worst grade in the class on the test”, or “Jimmy has got to be the ugliest boy I have ever
seen!, what a dork”.
These comments on SOCIAL MEDIA need to be addressed. I really believe it’s time to NOT allow children under age on social medias as they are NOT mature enough to not make disparaging comments to and about other kids that are already mixed up and those kids that are hurt from these types of attacks.
We limit freedoms all the time for minors like drinking, driving, smoking, banking, etc. Perhaps they should not also be allowed on the myriad of social media websites until they are old enough to know proper behavior.
Goodness knows the folks that participate here have enough trouble not making personal attacks, and name calling. And they should know better.
First of all I think Social Media is an oxymoron . These so called Social Media sites are having the exact opposite effect on people. The youth of today have a hard time with interpersonal skills and actual physical interaction. Its killing Society!
Definitely part of it. Kids will say on social media what they wouldn’t in person.
Lemmings – following each other into the sea.
The sky HAS fallen.
We need something like the sexual offender database, which tracks all military personal, former military personal and brain washed young people who joined a military program at school.
The military serves only one purpose: misery for themselves and profits for Wall Street.