A Private Snapchat Joke Sent Police to Her School in Under an Hour
Student teacher arrested for private Snapchat message
Kristen Volpe, a 22-year-old student teacher in Washington, Illinois, vented to three friends on Snapchat about a student wiping her lesson plan, joking about shooting the student or the school. Snapchat's automated AI flagged the message and alerted the FBI, which tipped off local police. Deputies arrived at her school within an hour, arrested her for disorderly conduct, and she lost her teaching placement—despite no formal charges being filed. The case highlights how private messages can be scanned and reported to law enforcement without a warrant.
The shorthand that emerged from this case — 'Snapchat AI → FBI → local police → school → arrest in under an hour' — is now the most vivid public illustration of a surveillance infrastructure most users didn’t know was already running.