The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

1,700 students get day off school after IM threat

US teen faces five years in jail

Free whitepaper – Optimizing the data center for cost and efficiency

An American teen was arrested yesterday after an Instant Message comment scared New York schools into closing for the day.

Benjamin Ballard made the threat to a student of Edgemont High School in Greenburgh, NY, via AOL Instant Messenger on Thursday. He told the student not to go to school the next day, mentioning "a lot of bodies", AP reports.

The student informed police, and the FBI traced the message to Ballard's address.

When cornered, Ballard told the FBI the comment was a joke. School officials, no doubt fearing a repeat of the Columbine massacre, decided to cancel classes for the Greenburgh school district on Friday, affecting almost 1,700 students.

Ballard was charged with transmitting a threat via interstate commerce. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in jail. ®

Related Stories

New York students threatened in online 'hit list'
George dubya blames Net for Columbine massacre

Free whitepaper – Dell/EMC CX4 and Dell PowerEdge blades

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes