News 12 First at Five, September 24, 2007

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Helen Masters' granddaughter goes to Langford Middle School. But she didn't go to school Monday because of threats.

"This thing that's going on over there is like a gang. If you're in it--everything's okay, but if you get out of it, that's when they start bullying you," said Masters.

Master's granddaughter says a group of ten girls is terrorizing students at Langford. The granddaughter didn't want to be identified.

"They've just been threatening people and throwing stuff at them and harassing them," said the granddaughter, "I'm just afraid something bad'll happen."

The principal at Langford said, "We don't have any bullying going on here."

The granddaughter says "that's not true" and the bullying escalated when she saw a threat on myspace.com--it was another Langford student threatening to beat the granddaughter up on Monday.

"They're not going to get caught. I know they're not. They're too sneaky and they twist people's words around and make it seem like they didn't do anything," said the granddaughter.

We showed the on-line threat to Lieutenant James Young. He says it does qualify as bullying and it's worth looking into.

"One thing you don't want to do if there's some tensions brewing here--you don't let it escalate--don't let it get to a point where something bad is going to happen or is getting ready to happen before you try to intervene or take some corrective action."

The student says until then--Langford students have to watch their backs at school and on-line.

According to Lt. James Young, MySpace threats are treated just like email threats. Depending on the severity, they can land you in jail under the terrorist threats statue.