Secret Service Interrogates 7th Grader Over Facebook Status Update
By Dan Hoffman
TACOMA, WA – When Vito Lapinta Jr. posted a Facebook status update about Osama bin Laden’s death that cautioned president Obama to be wary of suicide bombers, the young 7th grader didn’t know what he was getting himself into. A week after the post, Lapinta was visited by the secret services at his school.
“A man walked in with a suit and glasses and he said he was part of the Secret Services… He told me it was because of a post I made that indicated I was a threat toward the President,” Lapinta said.
Sure enough, the Secret Services had caught wind of Lapinta’s post and decided to investigate. Besides the obvious objections to law enforcement actually taking such a post seriously (one wonders if they took the time to stalk his profile, which probably could have saved them some trouble), the boy’s mother is outraged at the way they handled the situation.
Timi Robertson, the boy’s mother, received a call from a school security officer giving her a heads up that her boy was being interrogated.
Robertson is pissed for a number of reasons. For one, the call came from a security guard and not someone from the administration. The school claimed that the principal was on another call, so he couldn’t contact her. In addition, the officers didn’t wait for her to arrive to start the interrogation. The school explained that they didn’t wait for her because they didn’t think she took the call seriously.
“That’s a blatant lie,” Robertson said. “I just about lost it… My 13-year-old son is supposed to be safe and secure in his classroom and he’s being interrogated without my knowledge or consent privately.”
According to reports, Robertson cannot afford legal action against the Secret Services, but she hopes that by telling her story she will raise awareness about what her son went through.
Incidentally, the Secret Services concluded that Lapinta is not a threat to Obama or our national security and he is not getting in any trouble.