In Entertainment, a digital entertainment company in Connecticut has fired an online writer who publicly wanted the death of a group of Covington Catholic High school students and their families in a series of tweets. Apart from his regular job as an online post-production coordinator for INE Erik Abriss also is a contributor for the popular online pop culture magazine Vulture.
Erik Abriss was fired by his employer on Sunday for writing and tweeting on behalf of the company that the students would suffer at the hands of a group of students who have been bullying and taunting the family. He then posted a picture of what he claimed were the students’ bodies in the school and threatened to expose the images to the public if school officials did not do something about it. He also stated that he was contacting local news stations to expose the story.
School administrators were quick to condemn Abriss’ tweet. They also quickly released a statement that they would be investigating the situation and take any appropriate actions.
The students, however, were not pleased with the way that the school administration handled the situation. The parents and students alleged that the school administration was trying to cover up the real nature of the bullying. The parents and students also charged that the administration did not take the matter seriously enough to take action against the bullies.
Covington is a small community of about 10 families located in Stafford County, located in Connecticut. The community has a large Catholic influence and its population consists mainly of students from Catholic high schools in the surrounding area.
The school district reported that about two-dozen students had become concerned that they may have been victims of bullying when students began posting pictures of themselves and their young children on Twitter and posting comments on their own blogs. The district also said that at least three posts showed students wearing school colors were taunting another student whose parents live in the neighboring community.
The school district fired Abriss on Monday. He was able to leave the day after an employee at the website took down his personal information. Abriss, however, was not able to leave because he was unable to find a new job because he had been fired.
The online writer stated that he was happy with the school’s response to his tweets and that he hoped it would serve as a lesson for other online writers to be aware of what they are writing about in a blog or tweet. He also encouraged other online writers to do the same.
However, the parents of some students who were taunted in Covington said that the administrators at the school were more concerned about shutting the parents out of the case. In their view, the administrators did not want parents to be involved in the investigation because they were trying to protect the school’s reputation.
Abriss wrote that the Vulture Writer in particular was a good example of how to be careful in what you write. After he wrote about the death of one child at the school, the anonymous blogger added that the child may be a victim of bullying.
The Online Writer then wrote that he did not know whether he had been fired because he had posted about bullying or whether he had actually committed suicide. However, he said that if it was the former, he would be happy to come forward and tell the story.
He concluded by saying that he had never made a single post on the school’s Facebook page that was untrue about the school. However, he said that he was surprised to discover that he was fired.