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North Andover Teen Arrested For Cyber-Bullying Classmate

NORTH ANDOVER (CBS) -- Another cyber-bullying incident has happened at a local school. This one, ended in an arrest.

WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong reports

Police in North Andover say that a 16-year-old boy at the high school there had been harassing a classmate on the popular social networking site Facebook.

The victim's friend, a student named Hannah Carver, tells WBZ that the bullying target is a female senior at North Andover High and the suspect is a male junior.

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The boy had apparently been making unacceptable posts on the girl's Facebook wall for some time, until her family finally involved the police. Officers met with both sides and warned the boy that there would be consequences if the online bullying continued. But it still did not stop.

"It just said some very mean things about family on Facebook; just very uncalled for," explained Carver. "It's just stuff that doesn't need to be said, and it wouldn't be said in person, so I think it's a big problem."

Lt. Paul Gallagher confirmed these events, adding that cyber-bullying is becoming increasingly common.

"There's a lot of 'he said, she said' on the internet," said Gallagher. "And sometimes it gets very bad and obscene."

The boy was arrested and has already gone before a juvenile court judge in Lawrence to face the charges against him.

Carver, the victim's friend, tells WBZ that she's trying to move on.

"She was upset by the fact that it just kept on going, but she's fine."

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