Sixty minutes. That’s how long it took for a private Snapchat message to travel from Kristen Volpe’s phone to the FBI to the deputies standing in her elementary school hallway. On January 29, 2025, the 22-year-old student teacher at John L. Hensey Elementary in Washington, Illinois, vented to her boyfriend and two roommates — three people total — after a student closed her laptop mid-class and wiped her lesson plan. She referenced shooting the student or the school. She meant it as a frustrated joke. Snapchat’s algorithm didn’t get the humor.

No student reported her. No parent. No coworker. The flag was entirely automated. Snapchat’s policy permits voluntary emergency disclosures to law enforcement — no warrant required — when the platform determines imminent harm exists. The algorithm makes that initial call. Think of it like your Ring doorbell deciding to call 911 on its own, except the doorbell is reading your text messages.

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    18
    ·
    1 day ago

    That’s a stupid thing to say about a child in any context on any platform. Even in jest, keep that shit tucked away in your head.

    • DudleyMason@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      24 hours ago

      Yeah can’t wait until you say something in frustration and get hauled away for it. People supporting this bullshit are the only people who deserve to have it happen to them, and as long as we’re going down the fascism hellslide anyway I’m gonna take some satisfaction in seeing the people who supported the Leopards come to the horrific realization about exactly whose faces were on the menu.

      • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        17
        ·
        21 hours ago

        I’m in support of making sure my kids are safe. When someone says something like this, even in frustration, I don’t know if they intend to act on it. I’d rather everyone be safe.

        It was absolutely stupid of this teacher to fuck up like this.

        But I’d rather the police show up and check on her than have yet another school of bloodied, dead kids.

        But you do you.

        • andros_rex@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          31 minutes ago

          When someone says something like this, even in frustration,

          All teachers have vented in a way that you would probably find disturbing.

          The same way people in the medical profession make dark jokes. Sometimes people vent like this to cope.

          Now, putting it in text shows a shocking lack of judgment.

          • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 hours ago

            I have not. That’s just fucking weird. And violent. And that is NOT what was said here. So don’t move the goal post. The teacher specifically said “shoot”. Who the fuck even jokes about shooting someone!? That’s sick.

        • DudleyMason@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          18 hours ago

          I’d rather everyone be safe.

          Everyone except anyone who’s made a joke you personally find distasteful, apparently.

          When the thought police come for you, I hope no one lifts a finger.

            • DudleyMason@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              17 hours ago

              Funny is subjective.

              This was a joke, and so is your bullshit attempt to justify punishing thoughtcrime.

              • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                7
                ·
                15 hours ago

                Only thing less “funny” than this “joke” is the fact that people like you think it’s okay.

                There is NO context in which this would be “funny”.

                • howrar@lemmy.ca
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  15 hours ago

                  An example that comes to mind is mockery. People generally find mockery of behaviour/ideas that they find nonsensical to be funny. So if someone proposes that everything can be solved by a good guy with a gun, you can then mock the idea by proposing it for increasingly ridiculous scenarios.

                • wicked@programming.dev
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  14 hours ago

                  I have joked to my wife that our kids are lucky they’re so cute so we don’t throw them out of the window during a heavy day of misbehavior.

                  Obviously we wouldn’t ever do that (even if they weren’t so cute), so the joke is cathartic and can be funny in the right context.

                  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    2 hours ago

                    The teacher in the context of school said “shoot” the kid. What a sick thing to even think. Whoever thinks that’s okay has some deep rooted issues.

        • sakuraba@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          18 hours ago

          Safe from what? A joke?

          But I’d rather the police show up and check on her than have yet another school of bloodied, dead kids.

          Has there been any case like this? Or are you just pulling something out of nothing?

        • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          20 hours ago

          Oh quit with the haughty hypocritical bullshit. There is no way you have gone your entire life without venting or joking about committing an act of violence against someone or some evil company. Maybe we shouldn’t crucify people for ordinary human behavior. Morbid humor is just part of human communication. If you actually have never done so, I would think there’s something deeply psychologically wrong with you. Like you’re obsessed with appearances and carefully choose every single word to control your public image to the most minute degree.