SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Shawano Police and the Shawano School District continue to investigate an incident from Tuesday where a middle school student was seen hitting a classmate.
The video was then shared on social media, leading to community outrage.
In a punch seen around the internet, a Shawano Middle School student appears to attack another student. The incident caught on camera and uploaded to an Instagram page, specifically geared toward this type of behavior.
It’s a disturbing trend, according to law enforcement, in the age of social media. According to Det. Lt. Heidi Cartwright with the Shawano Police Department, “One of the things we’re seeing with adolescents of this generation is, they’re posting things online in an effort to get the most number of likes, the most number of followers, and with these being posted online this is not something that we agree with nor is it right.”
The Shawano Police Department worked with Instagram to not only have the video from Tuesday’s incident removed, but other similar videos were taken down from the same page. And even though the videos have been removed from Instagram, police say the damage is already done.
The victim’s mother reiterating that, telling Fox 11 News her son is doing okay, physically, but not mentally.
“They’re not taking into consideration the consequences that follow these actions nor the fact that what they may be posting or what they may be sharing on social media is very detrimental to the person that they are showing the materials about,” adds Cartwright.
The posting of these types of videos is continual harassment, according to police, and it’s something they believe communities should not condone. Cartwright says, “We can do our part to tell children what they should and should not be doing, but it is a lot of parenting and reinforcing of rules and guidelines and expectations within their own homes.”
Shawano Police say parents needs to monitor their kid’s social media and what kind of content they are posting.
And when community members see videos like this, they need to report them immediately.
