KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. –Four students at Ben Franklin Career Center are taking a stand against sextortion following the death of a Kanawha County teenager.
Fifteen-year-old Bryce Tate, a sophomore at Nitro High School, was found Nov. 6 with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
According to the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office, an investigation into his cellphone revealed he had been the victim of sextortion, a form of online exploitation in which offenders coerce or manipulate victims into sending sensitive or intimate images, often threatening to share them
Abigail Milam, Camryn Hindman, Lilly Hughes and Sarah Shaver, students in the medical assisting program at Ben Franklin Career Center, are using their voices to advocate against sextortion in honor of Bryce.
Milam said they saw Bryce every day at the center.
“Every morning at the coffee shop at Ben Franklin, he greeted us with a smile, and he was simply just a great person, and he made our mornings better by just greeting us with his kindness and everything,” she said Thursday on MetroNews Midday.
The girls will take part in a competition where they plan to discuss mental health, highlight what Bryce experienced and advocate against sextortion.
Hindman said the idea of addressing sextortion in their project had been discussed before, but after what Bryce experienced, it felt more urgent to speak out about it.
“After this incident happened, we really stepped up, and said this is a real thing that’s happening and we wanted to bring awareness to it and talk about it more because it’s not really talked about,” she said.
Sextortion became more prevalent in the late 2000s, particularly around 2009, as social media and online communication platforms grew in popularity.
Hughes said the conversation may be difficult, but they believe that hearing it from fellow teenagers makes it easier for other teens to listen and relate.
“We just think that children our age, or children even younger just will listen better to their peers instead of an adult or a teacher, you know because they see them every day and it’s always pressured on them, and they can connect to us better than they do a teacher or maybe an adult,” she said.
Medical assisting program instructor Christina Holsten said that as an educator, she strives to make her classroom a safe space where students feel comfortable coming to her or a guidance counselor to talk.
She said she hopes students know that she is there for them if they ever need support.
“Overall, just emphasizing and letting the students know that we all do make mistakes, but we have to learn from them and there’s way to deal with that and there’s people to talk to,” Holsten said.
Hindman said she hopes parents will use what happened to Bryce as encouragement to talk with their children and help prevent something like this from happening again.
“I feel like when parents talk to their kids, it gives them the sense of comfort, and there close with each other and they can trust, and I just feel like having those types of conversations could bring parents and their kids closer together,” she said.