LINN COUNTY, Iowa – Local teenagers are posting hateful messages about their peers on the social media website Twitter.

Four twitter accounts popped up last week specifically targeting students at John F. Kennedy, Washington and Linn-Mar High Schools. All with the same purpose of verbally harassing students online.

These twitter accounts take bullying to an extreme not seen before in our area, and have students questioning the point of the hurtful messages.

“Why would you want to hide behind a computer and hurt people for no reason,” said Kennedy student, Eric Dreismeier.

The online pages are tearing students down and sadly, gaining more followers through the cruel, hate-filled and sexually explicit posts plastered across the computer screens of students from Marion to Cedar Rapids.

Kennedy High School student Sydney Schantz says she’s heard students say they’d rather kill themselves than read the tweets targeting them.

“It’s beyond bad,” Schantz said, “It’s disgusting to even read it.”

Theses twitter pages are specific – naming their target and then humiliating the teen online. Two of the accounts have around 1,000 followers and many are tweeting the posts are “hilarious” and encouraging more comments.

“It’s like you’re creating a monster,” said Schantz, “Why would you give into that? It just disgusts me.”

The first account to surface targeted Kennedy High School students. They tell us the posts go far beyond normal teasing and want it stopped before someone gets hurt.

“People kill themselves from cyber bullying,” said Trevor Wood a Senior at Kennedy. “It’s real, and I don’t want that to happen.”

Both Washington and Kennedy were able to get accounts targeting their students shut down.

Kennedy Principal Mary Wilcynski knows two more sites are still up and running.

“I think parents need to get on the Facebook and Twitter accounts and see who’s saying what to whom and become parents and deal with it,” Wilcynski said.

Marion’s Chief of Police and Cedar Rapids Police tell TV9 there is an ongoing investigation into the accounts and wants all the students to know what’s happening is illegal and they will press charges. Until then, Schantz is encouraging her peers to be stronger than the bullies behind the computer.

“I honestly feel bad for the people doing it. They need help that they have to go that low to make themselves feel better,” she said.

The site targeting Linn-Mar students has not been shut down. We contacted school administrators Wednesday, but they tell us they are declining all interviews because the site is not within the school’s influence.

Both Cedar Rapids and Marion Police encourage any student with information about who is behind the twitter accounts to come forward.