Everything about the teenager stabbing a child at an Umhlali school last week is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The teen has a history of troubling behaviour, including allegations of assaulting classmates, writing a Telegram “manifesto” praising school killers in America, planting a bomb and apparently roaming freely despite repeated concerns about his behaviour.

The authorities were warned several times that he posed a danger to society, yet it appears that nothing was done about it.

Now a six-year-old girl lies in hospital, viciously stabbed and fighting to recover from her injuries. Her misfortune was being in what should have been the safe environment of a classroom, but at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The first serious incident, the makings of a bomb planted at Ballito Junction that failed to explode, was not prosecuted, apparently because of “insufficient evidence.” In my opinion, the police didn’t look hard enough, because it was as clear as daylight that he was the bomber. He said he was going to do it, in his “manifesto” on the Telegram app.

The boy was reported to police by the principal of the homeschool he attended following threatening messages to a classmate, but nothing was done.

There was only action after he planted the device on March 29, when he was sent to Town Hill psychiatric hospital for observation. He was later released, raising questions about what assessment and follow-up measures were put in place.

Dr Gerard Labuschagne, former head of the Saps investigative pyschology unit, told the Courier in July that he believed the boy posed an ongoing mass violence risk.

“Anybody who doesn’t take this seriously is a fool,” he said.

Courier journalist Jacqueline Herbst also interviewed terrorism and explosives expert Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies at the time, who accused police of failing to follow Saps standing orders on bomb threats. He said the teen should have been investigated under terrorism legislation as well as under ordinary criminal law.

Els was also critical of private establishments and businesses that conceal such incidents to protect their reputations, arguing that this undermined South Africa’s standing in the international fight against terrorism.

ALSO READ: Bomb plot, violent threats and school stabbing: The warning signs and systemic failures surrounding Ballito teen

It is a little-known fact that the first warning of a threat came from the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which alerted Saps to threats allegedly made by the teenager online. This they learned from his “manifesto” that they had intercepted in the course of their surveillance of suspect groups.

So many signs, so little done.

I’m not going to rehash all the known facts about this case. What has happened is a travesty. What has become scarily obvious is that social media is a Pandora’s box that has unleashed a world of pain.

This boy seemingly lived in a world fashioned by others. His influences were people who glorified school killings. He was instructed on social media how to make a handgun.

I learned from the news on Sunday that a teenager in Cape Town committed suicide after reportedly being bullied on WhatsApp. There have been many such stories in recent years. So many victims. And while the teenager accused in the Umhlali attack may himself be a troubled child in need of intervention, that cannot diminish the suffering of the little girl he stabbed.

And the most disturbing part is that the danger was not hidden in some dark alley – it was growing in plain sight, online. The pattern is clear: predators – and the ideas that turn children into predators – can reach children through the phones in their pockets. We, the adults, have to fight back. The enemy is not somewhere far away. It is in our homes, under our noses.

In a perfect world children would not have cellphones, but that is a losing battle. What I will say is that children should not have apps like Telegram, WhatsApp and Snapchat at all. Diligent parents should monitor their children’s devices regularly. There must be no secret or “no go” areas on a digital device. Everything secret is a magnet for curious children, but that doesn’t mean they should have free rein. There are more than one reason why under-18’s are not allowed in bars!

Today more than ever, the future lies in our hands. What happens to society in the years ahead depends in no small part on how you and I control the influences on our children’s minds.
Do the right thing!