An ugly war on Facebook

Ribbons of toilet paper still hang from trees in front of Warren High School.

The graffiti is gone. The four chickens were captured.

The only other remnants of a vicious cyber-bullying attack that presumably spawned a rash of vandalism are the emotional scars.

Victims of the online assaults may carry those a long time.

The end of any school year is fraught with mindless sophomoric pranks that are barely noticed and rarely reach news media attention. But a mean-spirited, anonymous Facebook page not only captured that attention but appears to be linked to vandalism at three Northside ISD high schools.

Officials have disciplined a group of students for the cyber-bullying and acts of vandalism at one high school, but there are few answers as to who is responsible for the other acts of vandalism.

At the beginning of May, school officials learned of the

"Oconnor Trash Tlk" Facebook page, which has since been removed.

The page started with O'Connor students bashing one another, then the venom spread toward students at Brandeis and Warren high schools.

The "Oconnor Trash Tlk" page was a button pusher, produced to entice students to message the page with more "trash." Its description asked students with something to say about someone to post it on the page's wall or, if they wished to remain anonymous, send it in a message.

"It was petty and immature," said Breanna Robinson, a 2011 Warren graduate who participated in a school board-student dialogue during a May 18 special meeting. Robinson said wall posts to the page often called other students nasty names. "The words that they used were crazy, calling people out of their names."

The dialogues between trustees and two students of each of Northside's 16 high schools are regular exchanges, but this time, trustees tried prompting students to detail the incident.

You S.A. obtained an audio recording of the meeting. During the meeting Superintendent John Folks told students that at some point, there was talk of possibly filing criminal charges against those responsible for the Facebook page.

Folks said Northside ISD had names of several students and that the case was expanded further than the O'Connor level.

"It will go to the district level and, possibly, to the police level," Folks said.

Administrators said social media is a gray area as far as consequences go.

"You can have freedom of speech. You can post whatever you want onto Facebook, but we can also say what happens at the school level," Folks said.

Participation in activities or athletics could be curtailed, he explained to students.

Folks told them district officials, after learning about the trash talk page, contacted the district's attorneys to determine what possible charges could be filed.

In a telephone interview this week, however, Assistant Police Chief Charles Carnes said no charges will be filed against those involved.

By press time, Folks returned none of several requests to be interviewed by You S.A.

Instead, each high school will handle resulting discipline, Carnes said.

While the Facebook page has been removed, it is not clear if someone from the district contacted administrators to ask that the page be removed.

According to its website, Facebook routinely works with law enforcement officials and will take steps toward removing a page if it receives a subpoena or court order.

Cade Martinez, a rising senior at O'Connor High School, said, "There were some students who loved the page and some students who were totally against it."

Eventually, the page caught the attention of other Northside schools.

What started with O'Connor students bashing one another mushroomed into a cyber war that pitted the Panthers against the Brandeis Broncos and later the Warren Warriors, district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez said in a telephone interview.

Brandeis, a two-year-old school, was started with transfer students from O'Connor.

The Panther-Warrior attack went viral after what appeared to be O'Connor students launching a vicious attack against a Warren senior, who tried to encourage students not to bash one another.

"It would have stayed at O'Connor if they didn't verbally attack one of the most loved, popular, amazing girls at Warren," Robinson said.

The "Oconnor Trash Tlk" then became what Warren students describe as an entire school attacking one person with degrading remarks.

"It disgusts me. For the whole school to participate in such a thing shows no class," Robinson said.