Maciejewski family statement

[Ship69]

The Maciejewski family has released the following statement concerning the death of Levi Maciejewski, son of Shippensburg football coach Mark Maciejewski

Family Statement on Levi’s Tragic Passing
As a family, we want to share this statement to address the many questions and speculations surrounding Levi’s untimely death. This is all the information we are able to provide at this time, and we kindly ask that you respect our request for privacy by refraining from asking further questions. While this may be a story to some, to us, it is an unimaginable loss and a deeply personal reality.
Levi’s death was the result of a heinous and rapidly growing crime known as “sextortion.” An online predator coerced, threatened, and blackmailed him, leading to devastating consequences. Law enforcement has classified Levi’s death as a homicide due to the deliberate and senseless actions of another individual. Efforts are underway to identify and hold the responsible party accountable.
We were an ordinary family with typical teenage kids, and our lives have been irreparably changed by this unfathomable crime.
Now, we are a grieving family trying to find our way without Levi. He was a loving, confident, spirited 13-year-old boy who brightened the lives of everyone who knew him. Levi deserves to be remembered and honored for the incredible person he was.
We hope that by sharing our heartbreak, we can bring awareness to the dangers of sextortion and prevent others from experiencing the pain we endure every day.
Technology has made the world more connected than ever, but it has also opened doors to the predators lurking behind screens. It is critical that we educate ourselves and our children about the hidden dangers of a digital lifestyle. Awareness and education are vital to protecting our loved ones and confronting this growing threat.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of online extortion or sextortion, please contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. You can make a report by calling 1-800-THE-LOST at any time. For more information on sextortion and how to protect your family, please visit missingkids.org/netsmartz/topics/sextortion
Thank you for your compassion, understanding, and for joining us in raising awareness to protect others.

[TheBigCat2192]

I normally don’t comment much on matters that aren’t football/basketball-related but reading this fills me with nothing but disgust and anger. I’m hopeful that the perpetrator(s) can be caught and put to death or at least put away for a long long time.

[Boro33]

The Maciejewski family has released the following statement concerning the death of Levi Maciejewski, son of Shippensburg football coach Mark Maciejewski

Family Statement on Levi’s Tragic Passing
As a family, we want to share this statement to address the many questions and speculations surrounding Levi’s untimely death. This is all the information we are able to provide at this time, and we kindly ask that you respect our request for privacy by refraining from asking further questions. While this may be a story to some, to us, it is an unimaginable loss and a deeply personal reality.
Levi’s death was the result of a heinous and rapidly growing crime known as “sextortion.” An online predator coerced, threatened, and blackmailed him, leading to devastating consequences. Law enforcement has classified Levi’s death as a homicide due to the deliberate and senseless actions of another individual. Efforts are underway to identify and hold the responsible party accountable.
We were an ordinary family with typical teenage kids, and our lives have been irreparably changed by this unfathomable crime.
Now, we are a grieving family trying to find our way without Levi. He was a loving, confident, spirited 13-year-old boy who brightened the lives of everyone who knew him. Levi deserves to be remembered and honored for the incredible person he was.
We hope that by sharing our heartbreak, we can bring awareness to the dangers of sextortion and prevent others from experiencing the pain we endure every day.
Technology has made the world more connected than ever, but it has also opened doors to the predators lurking behind screens. It is critical that we educate ourselves and our children about the hidden dangers of a digital lifestyle. Awareness and education are vital to protecting our loved ones and confronting this growing threat.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of online extortion or sextortion, please contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. You can make a report by calling 1-800-THE-LOST at any time. For more information on sextortion and how to protect your family, please visit missingkids.org/netsmartz/topics/sextortion
Thank you for your compassion, understanding, and for joining us in raising awareness to protect others.

For all you guys who have children.... at any age, elementary, middle school, high school, college, and beyond; take a moment and discuss this incident. It can happen to ANYONE. Our children live in a FAR different world than most of us grew up in. Talk to them. NEVER respond to a text or email that you do not recognize or unsure of. Stay prayed up for the Macjewski family please.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

For all you guys who have children.... at any age, elementary, middle school, high school, college, and beyond; take a moment and discuss this incident. It can happen to ANYONE. Our children live in a FAR different world than most of us grew up in. Talk to them. NEVER respond to a text or email that you do not recognize or unsure of. Stay prayed up for the Macjewski family please.

I wish they would dismember these online predators - slowly - in public places. Biggest scum of all scum.

It is unimaginable what this has caused.

It's not only children. The elderly (generally) are extremely gullible to email, phone and text scams. The extortion scams became a big thing in the past 1-2 years. They send them to millions of people.

My parents love to open every email they receive. I'm fixing their devices constantly.

[IUPNation]

This was pure evil plain and simple.

[Tdobson]

I’m sorry to hear about this. Online predators need to be punished.

[Fightingscot82]

You wouldn't believe how often this happens to young people, especially those in college. I've seen cases where the person is bilked out of thousands. I've also seen people with disabilities taken advantage of through these schemes. Unfortunately almost every time PSP traces it back to international troll farms, most in Russia. There's nothing a state police department can do.

[Ship69]

In Australia, they're trying to keep kids under 16 off the Internet. In the U.S., Supreme Court just ruled the Internet providers can do basically anything they want. They were already putting out oceans of drivel and misinformation anyway. At a minimum, use of mobile phones in schools should be prohibited.

[ironmaniup]

I'd be happy to see the perpetrator punished harshly and violently.

But we need to look in the mirror, too. What kind of society allows a 13 yr old to feel they would be so humiliated that they take their own life instead of facing it, its not just the scammer who wanted money, it is the people that would have laughed and shamed him had the truth come out. maybe he misjudged that - but why ? because he sees all the hate. because we sexualize and humiliate children regularly, for big money. Family can do only so much, Children (people) should feel that if they go wrong they will be supported by their community, not humiliated by it.

we have a society that allows a down on her luck woman to be burned to death in the NY subway, publishes the video with lots of thoughtless comments that cruel jackasses think are funny. The internet doesn't cause this, it's just showing who we really are. Turning away because no one you know acts like that is never enough.

[Chuck Norris]

You wouldn't believe how often this happens to young people, especially those in college. I've seen cases where the person is bilked out of thousands. I've also seen people with disabilities taken advantage of through these schemes. Unfortunately almost every time PSP traces it back to international troll farms, most in Russia. There's nothing a state police department can do.

I got an email a couple years ago. Even though I was sure it was a scam and any attempt to extort me based on my internet history would have wound up in great boredom and disappointment for the scammer, the details of the email were pretty jarring. I showed it to a friend in the state police just to be certain there was nothing to worry about. It’s scary stuff especially if you have kids or older relatives.

[Fightingscot82]

I got an email a couple years ago. Even though I was sure it was a scam and any attempt to extort me based on my internet history would have wound up in great boredom and disappointment for the scammer, the details of the email were pretty jarring. I showed it to a friend in the state police just to be certain there was nothing to worry about. It’s scary stuff especially if you have kids or older relatives.

Yeah its a scary world. I've got a teenager with a few more following in the years ahead. Smart phones are such a detriment to our society (most adults fight some form of addiction to them now) but the newer social media like Snapchat, TikTok, and the anonymous posting apps are causing irreparable harm to young people. I wish we could have collectively fought back against giving kids smart phones and unfettered access to the internet but as the kids say, you can't put toothpaste back in the tube. Friends of ours told us over the weekend that their 10 year old got an iPhone for Christmas.

The bullying, self-esteem, and body image issues are bad enough and now we have to worry about international scammers. I guess I'm old now that I'm longing for those old days of phone calls and just stopping by to socialize.

[Ship69]

Yeah its a scary world. I've got a teenager with a few more following in the years ahead. Smart phones are such a detriment to our society (most adults fight some form of addiction to them now) but the newer social media like Snapchat, TikTok, and the anonymous posting apps are causing irreparable harm to young people. I wish we could have collectively fought back against giving kids smart phones and unfettered access to the internet but as the kids say, you can't put toothpaste back in the tube. Friends of ours told us over the weekend that their 10 year old got an iPhone for Christmas.

The bullying, self-esteem, and body image issues are bad enough and now we have to worry about international scammers. I guess I'm old now that I'm longing for those old days of phone calls and just stopping by to socialize.

You are not alone in longing for some of those things. You'll always have people who tell you change is inevitable, which is true, but I always point out that change is not value neutral. You can have bad change along with the good, which we see in the case of the Internet. AI is another example with the potential to radically transform medical treatment for the good, but also the potential to destroy us if unregulated. But faced with hard choices about such technologies as these, we have leaders who'd rather worry about who uses what restroom.

[iupgroundhog]

The ways in which we are losing our sense of humanity to technology cannot be overstated.

[Fightingscot82]

The ways in which we are losing our sense of humanity to technology cannot be overstated.

100% this. People are already doing and saying things via technology that they NEVER would do in person. The bad actors from outside the USA are a huge problem in many ways. Now AI is even further removing us from our own activities.

[ironmaniup]

100% this. People are already doing and saying things via technology that they NEVER would do in person. The bad actors from outside the USA are a huge problem in many ways. Now AI is even further removing us from our own activities.

I don’t agree. people are much more humane now than they have ever been. Social media just advertises all the bad behavior much more and gives a wider victim pool. So it seems worse, but We just didn’t used to know ( or admit) what the priest and wrestling coach was doing.