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."

Comments

just one thing

[sorin7486]

only in America... cheers

Shooting people

[jfengel]

(Just because I hate coming in to Slashdot and watching everybody post "Boy, they must be morons!" over and over).

Building a map of the school is obviously harmless. But think of how the map is used in the video game: you wander the halls shooting at things. I think you can understand how, immediately after Virginia Tech, this is going to make people a little bit nervous. If I'd discovered this, I would at least want to have a talk with the kid.

It's also obvious that they've massively overreacted. The hammer is an object of no interest; he had a reasonable alibi for having it. Although it's a cause for concern, it's also clear that it's fun to imagine shooting up monsters (not students) in a video game.

(I should note, however, that in a high school I am associated with, a student was brained by another student in broad daylight DURING CLASS with a hammer. His only disguise was a sweat shirt hood, but everybody recognized him and he was immediately arrested. He was, clearly, an idiot.)

So I'm not going to defend the overreaction, but I'd really like to see people admit that there was reasonable cause for at least a little concern here. They should have talked with him, figured out that he was no trouble, and dropped it. But completely ignoring the situation wouldn't have been right, either.

Re:Understood...

[Cedric Tsui]

The article doesn't mention an arrest or any legal charges whatsoever.
He was simply suspended from the school... Ok. And sent to some crappy re-education centre.

Re:Understood...

[GreyPoopon]

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.

Before you jump into action, here's a little more information:

• Article in Houston Chronicle
• They found five swords (not a hammer)

The summary is this

1. He was created a game maps for a first-person shooter game.
2. He was dumb enough to show his work to somebody else, most likely at school.
3. When the police searched his room, they found five swords. There's no indication of whether his parents knew about them, or whether they were part of some hobby (like fencing) where it would be appropriate to have them, or whether they had practice or sharp edges.
4. Even the board is questioning whether they overreacted.
5. The police chose not to arrest him.

So he basically got sent to an "alternate" education path to get him out of the school and he's not allowed to attend graduation. The question is, in light of the information above, do you see these two moves as unreasonable pending the outcome of an investigation and psychological evaluation? It's entirely possible that after meeting with a psychologist he would be allowed to return to school and participate in graduation. How should the school have handled it? When answering, keep in mind that school officials would be responsible for balancing the concerns of other parents against what's best for the student in question.

Hate crime.

[Shivetya]

Get him for a hate crime, its about as nebolous as a terroristic crime they want to accuse him of.

Its not like you can't get the layout by simply yanking a fire escape plan off the wall, hell I bet they hand them out.

His crime is merely being around paranoid school officials who rely on the law to excuse them from thinking because they might be accused of favortism. The courts, because of over zealous parents, abusive rights groups (ACLU comes to mind), and money hungry lawyers, have hamstrung the school systems into becoming draconian with the rules.

Not only do they not teach students properly but teachers are forbidden from discipline or instill right or wrong. The only "right" they impose is that government schools will teach and coddle them. They are not taught what is wrong except in very broad terms again for fear of offending someone. Hell my friend's kid has even said that they cannot mention which religion the terrorists who beheaded journalist were! Hows that for a dysfunctional system.

No, the kid is only at fault for going to a public school. We are at fault as a nation for not taking the schools back from the federal government and teachers unions who find ways to prevent states and localities from instilling common sense and decency.

Re:Understood...

[Ash Vince]

So lets het this straight.

Creating a map of a school using a map format that is used by a violent computer games is banned / illeagal or whatever.

Yet owning enough firearms and ammo to take out a small town is perfectly legal.

The US is the most fucked up country ever in this regard. When will they realise that guns kill people, not computer games.