For Thursday, April 29, 1999 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 694 words

Ripples and waves

I feel obliged to write around the Columbine High School shootings. I suppose columnists and essayists worldwide feel that Columbine is the most responsible topic to write about this month. I want to write around it because the shockwaves of the event have created a plethora of sidebar stories.

Here's my sidebar tale:

On the night of the carnage, I heard on the news that the little boys had a website. I immediately began searching for it at my home computer. I didn't find it, but in my exploration I found another website titled "Welcome to the

Black Turmoil Mafia Nest." This site came up on my Infind search engine when I typed in "Trench Coat Mafia."

The site seemed benign at first. A humorous voice message said, "Retina eye scan activated." The page contained two paragraphs of text and some further links.

The first paragraph seemed harmless. The language was that of little boys who had formed a private club house and were decreeing their exclusivity. They warned in psuedo-ominous terms that members were invited, but outsiders entered at their own risk.

The second paragraph, however, raised my hair and eyebrows. It was not so harmless. Here is a quote from it: "This is the restricted area known as the Black Turmoil Mafia Nest. We are a near-extinct population of elite Mobsters/Hitmen. We were trained from birth to be the deadliest assassins on Earth. We have never missed a target. We hold high respect for those in our brotherhood and never dishonor the 'ShahFather'." It went on to discuss initiation rites.

That alone didn't spook me. It still sounded like little boys wanting to be tough and scary. What gave me serious rise was one of the hyperlinks. It was titled: "Our Hit List."

I followed it. The linked page contained a list of 23 scrambled names with this cruel opening paragraph: "Our Targets -- Identities are encoded so as not to tip anyone off. Also, targets with a star by the name are the ShahFather's own personal targets and will be eliminated by him, and only him, unless his permission is granted to someone else."

O.K. This website wasn't funny anymore. It was mean. Still, it seemed like a prank, like these kids were tastelessly toying with violence. So far it had merited only my adult disgust. Then I got to Victim 19. This entry, unlike the others, was not scrambled, and it read as follows: "All 7^th graders at Cascia Hall with the exception of a select few."

I wanted to view this site as a bad joke, but I couldn't. First I printed the pages. Then I poked around trying to find out where these kids lived. They left no trail. Their site was posted on Angelfire, a web-hosting company. I could call them, but it was bedtime.

The next day at school, I gave the pages to Heather, my school news editor. I asked her to search for Cascia Hall School on the Internet. She found it in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The school had a web page so we emailed alerts to the Reverend Headmaster and several school officials.

A moment later we decided to call, to make sure our message got through. I spoke with a secretary and explained that in light of the Colorado killings we felt that they should investigate this website. She agreed, then took my name and phone number.

That afternoon in my 5^th period class I got a callback from a Cascia Hall administrator. She said they'd held an assembly and asked who had built the Black Turmoil Mafia web pages. Several boys confessed. They had built the pages in October as a bad joke. It was all a hoax. They apologized and pulled down the website that very afternoon. The administrator thanked us for our call. She said she had received calls and emails from all over the country.

Perhaps that's another way we can mollify teen violence. Parents and teachers across America can spend a few spare minutes whenever possible surfing the Internet looking for troubled teen web sites. They abound.