Sixty minutes. That’s how long it took for a private Snapchat message to travel from Kristen Volpe’s phone to the FBI to the deputies standing in her elementary school hallway. On January 29, 2025, the 22-year-old student teacher at John L. Hensey Elementary in Washington, Illinois, vented to her boyfriend and two roommates — three people total — after a student closed her laptop mid-class and wiped her lesson plan. She referenced shooting the student or the school. She meant it as a frustrated joke. Snapchat’s algorithm didn’t get the humor.
No student reported her. No parent. No coworker. The flag was entirely automated. Snapchat’s policy permits voluntary emergency disclosures to law enforcement — no warrant required — when the platform determines imminent harm exists. The algorithm makes that initial call. Think of it like your Ring doorbell deciding to call 911 on its own, except the doorbell is reading your text messages.
Seriously. I’m tired of the haughty Puritans pretending they don’t know what morbid humor is. At my grandfather’s funeral, my whole family was doing it. It’s a way to grieve. For example, he was a farmer. He literally bought the farm. at several points in his life. One of the jokes I remember making was, “he bought the farm, and later he bought the farm!”
My younger brother lived a very troubled life. Struggled with a lot of mental health and related substance abuse issues. Served time in jail after committing armed robbery for drug money. Died in his late 20s from an OD. But he was still my brother, and I still loved him. At his funeral:
“HE’S ROBBING ANGELS NOW!”
Frankly, if someone can’t appreciate morbid humor, I don’t want to be friends with them.