Posts tagged Gloucester Times

Gloucester High School punished these five students, including four athletes, for directing racist tweets at professional hockey player Joel Ward, who is black. Along with many other Twitter users, the student posted the tweets after Ward scored the winning goal for the Washington Capitals in a playoff game against the Boston Bruins.

The school did not release the names of the students, and The Times explained its decision not to identify them. But their Twitter handles and Google searches provided clues into most of their identities:

• Jim Smith, the father of one of the students, sent a letter of apology to the Gloucester Times on behalf of his son. One of the Twitter handles includes the name Ryan Smith.
• Another Twitter handle includes the name Owen Parisi. According to a Facebook profile that features a profile picture of a hockey goalie, an Owen Parisi is in the Class of 2015 at Gloucester High School. The now-deleted Twitter page of @OwenParisi included a similar hockey photo as a profile picture.
• The Twitter handle @Glidden24 belonged to a Jesse Glidden, the same name of another hockey goalie at Gloucester High School. A Jesse Glidden also is a Facebook friend of Owen Parisi.
• A fourth Twitter handle includes the name Steven Cardone, which is the name of a football player at Gloucester High School.

The fifth student used the Twitter handle @devin_GeraldHart635.

The Gloucester students were not alone in tweeting racist comments about Ward, nor were they the only young people to do so. A mother in Attleboro, Mass., made her son apologize for writing saying Ward “deserves to hang” and revoked his Twitter privileges. And a student at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire also faced disciplined under the school’s code of conduct.