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Student Arrested for Making Videogame Map of School
tanman writes "A student at the Houston-area Clements High School was arrested, sent to an "Alternative Education Center" and banned from graduation after school officials found he created a video game map of his school. School district police arrested the teen and searched his home where they confiscated a hammer as a 'potential weapon'. ' "They decided he was a terroristic threat," said one source close to the district's investigation.' With an upcoming May 12 school board election, this issue has quickly become political, with school board members involved in the appeal accusing each other of pandering to the Chinese community in an attempt to gain votes."
This royally pisses me off. I always wanted to build Quake levels for my high school, because it would have been the perfect multiplayer map. Two or more routes to any given place, wide halways, two floors, balconies, stairs at the end of every hallway...it would have been awesome.
But I never went through with it, because Columbine was still fresh in everyone's memory, and I was afraid that exactly this sort of thing would happen.
It's not a fear of terrorism that drives this sort of thing, or even a fear for our children. It's a fear of our children. We're so scared of the little guys that the instant they bring school into their video game hobby, we freak out.
This kid doesn't deserve to be arrested. He doesn't deserve to be thrust into "Alternative Education". He deserves to have someone ask him why he built the school in a video game. Let a psychologist evaluate him, and then either medicate the kid or let him go back to class.
(And someone should offer him constructive criticism on his level building techniques.)
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When I was a young'un, I created a Quake map of the local Laser Tag joint. I even was working on a mod that changed the weapons to behave more along the rules of the game. Even worse, my mod gibbed you if you tried to illegally cross the center barrier. (*gasp!*) Should I have been arrested as a terrorist? Maybe I was planning to run in with a Phazer pistol and start shooting the place up?!? Actually, I suppose it's worse than that, because I did actually run in and start shooting the place up with a Phazer pistol. Oh noes!
I'm sorry, but the idea of creating a school map for you and your friends to play is something that goes back as far as Doom. Kids create these environments because they're familiar, not because they want to go shooting up the place. Only Jack Thompson believes that unbalanced people "train" for killing on these games. The truth of the matter is that ole' Jack is full of sh*t. His claim on Fox news that a previous shooter had created maps of his school turned out to be bunk. He had created maps for Counter Strike, but nothing even vaguely related.
If this map disturbed parents (which is an understandable concern given recent events), then the school's action should have been to evaluate the individual, not immediately kick him out of school. Pretty much all of the shooters in recent history were known to be mentally unbalanced prior to the shootings. An evaluation of the individual's mental state and school records would clarify if he was a threat or not. If not (which it doesn't sound like in this case), you ask them to discontinue the behavior, delete the maps, and go about school as usual. But instead, we give these kids a real reason to hate the faculty. Way to go guys.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
So where can I download this map? I'm certain it'll be pretty popular within the next few days, so I want my copy now...
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
As someone who made maps of campus for Doom back in college, I can attest that students have been doing this for years without ill-effect. It's a natural reaction to want to create a game map of places you know, especially somewhere you spend hours on a daily basis. This is purely reactionary BS on their part due to the current environment surrounding violent video games in our country. I doubt they bothered to check if he was troubled or someone to be concerned about, and simply jumped to conclusions.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I have heard of cops falsifying search records, but that notwithstanding how can anyone justify classifying a hammer as a potential terrorist weapon? I hope this kid's parents have a lot of money so that they can get some justice for their son.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Jedi Knight 2 had a map of the Raven offices. Same for Blood and Monolith.
FTA: "Speakers at the FBISD Board's April 23 meeting alluded to the Clements senior's punishment, and drew a connection to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in which a Korean student shot and killed 32 people."
In which video games *WERE NOT INVOLVED*. But that clearly doesn't matter. Something bad happened involving people under the age of 21, and as such video games must be at the heart of it.
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
It sounds to me as if half the school board members and police need psychological councelling. The kid is fine, but he will probably do better in a different school with normal people.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Since I'm from the deep south (somewhere east of Texas and west of Mississippi) I feel qualified to say...
This is par for the course in this part of the United States. Ignorance, fear and xenophobia run rampant, white men run everything, and opportunism prevails at every turn. Police forces are treated as a paramilitary force, and zero tolerance is the rule in schools - even though it only means that more kids every year get fewer chances at straightening up and becoming successful.
Louisiana (and other population-losing red states) wonder why it's best and brightest move away as soon as they finish college - crap like this is the reason why.
Please take heart. Not all of us adults are such utter fucking morons.
Not that you'd know it from the comments on the article, where a depressing number of people say they hope he has learned from his "mistake."
I bet he has. He's learned to keep his activities secret from the authorities if he values his freedom. He's learned a little bit about what it's like to live in an increasingly paranoid, authoritarian society, where innocuous activities that harm nobody can get one declared an enemy of the people. He's learned that politicians have no compunctions about advancing their own careers by ruining the lives of the people they supposedly serve.
His mistake wasn't making the map. If FPSes had been around when I was in high school I would have loved to play on a map of the school; unlike a bunch of adults, it seems, I understood and understand the difference between video games and reality. His mistake was not being sufficiently clandestine when he shared it with his friends. Hopefully he will take this as a valuable lesson about the value of covering his tracks thoroughly in his daily life.
Add to this a mix of fascist officials and craven lawmakers who choose to ignore rights in search of appearing to address the security problem (insert Ben Franklin quote here).
You're right, it's a culture of fear, but it goes beyond our children. It's the technology and to a large extent, a media-inspired culture of fear... of EVERYTHING.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I'm right there with you. My friends and I built a map of our high school in Doom. We even put deamon spawn points in some of the classrooms where teachers we didn't like worked. All of the students involved have gone on to grow into productive contributing members of society with out killing a single person.
In addition to working on doom and quake levels based on real world locations, I also grew up around guns (with a very healthy respect for them), listened to heavy metal, and was probably considered a non-conformist to most (ie: trench coat and combat boot wearing, angst ridden, KMFDM listening, rivet head-teenager).
Had I gone to school after Columbine or VA Tech, I would have likely been arrested and secured for the safety of society, instead of going on to serve honorably in the US Marine Corps, working in medical research, and raising a family. The real shame here is how this kid's life will forever be changed because of overzealous scaremongers trying to make examples of anyone who doesn't fit in their homogenized view of society.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
sig? Oh, that sig...
Apart from that, i do think that the restrictions put on pot are pretty stupid - putting a pot smoker into ALC would be just as stupid as putting the guy the story is about in ALC. Thats doesnt make smoking pot "ok", but that does make overzealous punishment "idiotic".
Besides, ANY mind altering act (be it sex, drugs, alchohol, anything) done to get away from emotional pain will always get worse. Doing it for fun or socially is fine - just like drinking alchohol, its ok in moderation.
Speaking of moderation, maybe you outta give it a try. Lay off the speed.
-Red
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.