The Rumor Mill: An odd bit of news began leaking its way to the public Saturday evening when News12 anchor Tara Rosenblum tweeted around 7 P.m. that a Suffern Middle School student was “caught with a ‘hitlist'”. By 11 p.m. News12 reported the news online with the following headline: “Sources: Suffern Middle School student caught with hit list.”

The RocklandStar reported Sunday at noon that “apparently a student was ‘screwing around’ and came up with a list. The school was made aware of the issue and dealt with it accordingly.”

What does it all mean? Apparently an incident occurred at Suffern Middle School this past week and the school followed established protocols. The Ramapo Central School District is dealing with the matter behind closed doors as it involved a minor and student information is tightly regulated. From all indications the incident did not involve a “real” hit list but was rather a prank. People are understandably hypersensitive about gun violence. Students, especially middle school aged, don’t fully register the complex and emotionally-charged issues associated with school violence, real or imagined. Needless to say, gun play pranks involving a list of names do not go over well.

Tara Rosenblum recently tweeted @tararosenblum12 that “So far, police and school officials are not talking to us,” apparently meaning, Ramapo Central and SMS are not speaking with News12 about the incident.

The whole story/rumor already has its own Twitter hashtag: #suffernhitlist.

Suffern Middle School image courtesy of Westchester.News12.