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Calif. Man Arrested For ESPN Post On Killing Kids
SternisheFan writes with an AP story as carried by Yahoo that illustrates one of the boundaries of free speech online: "A California man accused of posting comments on ESPN's website saying he was watching kids and wouldn't mind killing them was in jail Tuesday on $1 million bail after he was arrested for investigation of making terrorist threats, authorities said. Several guns were found Monday at the home of former Yale University student Eric Yee, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Steve Low. Yee was arrested after the sports network ESPN reported threatening posts were made in a reader response section to an online ESPN story on Thursday about new Nike sneakers named after LeBron James that cost $270 a pair. Some of the nearly 3,000 reader comments on the story talked about children possibly getting killed over the sneakers because of how expensive they are, said ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys. 'What he was posting had nothing to do with sports," Soltys said Tuesday. "We closely monitor the message boards and anytime we get a threat, we're alerting law enforcement officials.' An employee at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., notified local police the same day and they linked the posting to Yee's home in Santa Clarita in northern Los Angeles County."
Actually, this is what people should be doing: responding to obvious cries for help before the perp manages to shoot up a theater full of people.
The source link doesn't work. It goes to a dead link and appears to be the mobile site. Please correct.
K Man
Is it me or is a "terrorist threat" charge starting to become the "etc" category to charge people for statements that someone is uncomfortable with.
If he is making a threat that is a chargeable offense and the "terrorism" adjective is useless anyway.
Where everything i$ justified if any of the word$ "terrori$t", "childen", "copyright" is on the $entence.
Guess it died as soon as people found you could call something terorist.
I love how the article points out that "several guns were found", implying that it is somehow out of the ordinary for an American citizen to legally own firearms. See? He owns guns, so obviously he must be a violent psychopath.
Stupid media.
vs Freedom of being an (internet) dumbass.
Update on the story here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/2012/09/20/lawyer-man-violent-online-posts-just-dumb/JPtvCDIq8kRbeaologqbgM/story.html
What I'm not finding is a quote of what he actually said, and that could make all the difference between overreaction by law enforcement or justified intervention.
Ie. "I'd kill some kids for those sneakers, LOL"
Say this out loud and see how it sounds: "My kid needs $300 sneakers!". Does this sound good to you? Then you have the mind of a five-year-old and are still waiting for your golden ticket from Wonka.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
I would demand a jury trial made mostly of people who have children.
I would then sue for false arrest - with a jury of mostly parents.
Please, everyone at one time or another has said something to the effect of "I'd like to kill ..." or "I'm gonna kill him!".
It's an expression of frustration. But unfortunately in this day and age of the preception of nut cases and terrorists around every corner (and over zealous forum monitors), bullshit like this is going to happen.
So, what is one to do? Don't post on sites. And with that .... see ya.
Freedom of speech has limits as well. Threatening speech usually is not.
$270? Maybe someone should kill LeBron James.
So they monitor the board and report anyone they don't like to the police ? Isn't that the point of moderators ?
What benefit does anyone gain if everyone is running to the police about "threats" ? How does espn benefit from this ? What about the commentators ?
It just seems stupid, where if you disagree with something and start spouting off about it, they can clobber you IRL.
And it seems like ALL companies are doing this, facebook, google, aol, M$, apple. What do these companies actually gain by being government pigeons ?
As skeptical as I am of doing this it lets be fair. It doesn't sound like a frequent occurrence.
I like the part where neither the summary or the article actually shows us exactly what he said so that we can judge its seriousness for ourselves.
Dude is obvious Troll/Moron.. but so are most people. Now you go to jail for trolling.
Unless he threatened specific kids and was on an imminent killing spree, his comments are protected by free speech.
I know what they say about smart people doing stupid things, but this is ridiculous.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
a kid was killed waiting in line to buy nike sneakers here in NY, 3 weeks ago:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120911/NEWS01/309110036/homicide-arrest-Gates-sneaker-store-robbery
in other words, the cops have a reason to act on these threats, as this actually happens, and is not in the realm of absurdity, but reality
i know, the slashdot zeitgeist is to whine and moan about this
but i'm sorry, if you are going around threatening to kill people online, i'm glad the cops go after you
freedom? safety? blah blah blah: what the fuck are you doing threatening to kill people online?! you forfeit all free speech protections when you do that
c'mon stop with the bullshit slashdot
libel and threats of real world violence are exempt from free speech and subject to arrest and prosecution. as it should be. free speech has always had, and will always have, these exempt provisions
and this is the correct status quo!
grow up slashdot. seriously
enough with the hysteric, spastic, melodramatic ben franklin quotes about freedom and safety IN THE CONTEXT OF ASSHOLES WHO THREATEN REAL WORLD VIOLENCE
if you threaten real world violence, fuck you, throw your ignorant dumb ass in jail: 100% correct. really
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I've read TFA - even though the link in the summary is broken - and what I can't see is any detail on what the offending post actually said. I mean, are we talking about a "I see kids pestering their parents for $250 sneakers and sometimes I want to throttle them myself" type comment? If so... grotesque over-reaction, violation of constitutional rights etc.
Or are we talking about something which clearly expresses a credible intention to commit violence? If so... fine, go ahead and stop a major crime from occuring.
He threatened the children he was watching, that is a very specific threat, is it not?
Since TFA is down, I can't read TFA, but judging from the summary it read muchs more like he was commenting on working conditions in Nike's factories than making a "terrorist threat". Surely the US isn't yet at the stage where commenting on a company's business practices is considered terrorism?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Whether this idiot was serious or not, he should be punished for his incredible
stupidity. And he should be deprived of any weapons he might own, because
anyone who would exhibit such poor judgement should not be permitted to own
weapons.
Perhaps by actually giving them some help, not arresting them under a terrorism related charge.
Because recently there were many people banging on about how great free speech was, evein if it was known to incite violence. It was ALL "FREE SPEECH IS TEH BESTEST EVA!!!".
Yet here we have a case where even in that bastion of free speech, even if it has no point other than to cause riots, is shitcanned and many people are defeinding this.
this is thought crime pure and simple
no different than the chinese government arresting someone for talking about democracy
the correct course of action is to send someone to tail the guy and investigate, you know actual police work
this is another reason why we need a decentralized internet not in control of any government or corporation
http://project-byzantium.org/ is a good start, get an old laptop, run a node, update it every 6 months -- if enough people do that the mesh will eventually be everywhere
Oh, since we've branded him a terrorist, we don't actually need a crime or evidence of a crime. Way to go USA, you've become a terrorist nation . . . . at least against your own people.
This was the plot of a very good book I read.
First of all, in reference to kids: I know few parents who haven't used the "i'm gonna kill him/her/them!" at one time or another in reference to their kids during parenthood. And sometimes you think they're not joking (e.g., when Tommy paints the miniature horse red and chases it through the house). Are we gonna call these parents terrorists or even criminals?
Terrorism laws are bleeding into the prosecution of obviously non-terroristic acts. Terrorism laws are ill-defined, have little or no legal history and precedent and should be discarded. Before the Patriot Act was first passed the collective Attorneys General of the states issued a statement that the Patriot Act was unnecessary and that extant laws were more than sufficient. But Congress pissed on the best available legal advice and continues to do so by renewing the Act.
What is really really bad is that real kids are likely being even dying, being paid a pittance to make the $300 piece of shit shoes. Bu that's business, and we don't give a shit or at least close our eyes so we can have our baubles and trinkets.
Silence is a state of mime.
I do understand the public wanting more safety as there have been so many incidents in recent years. However this guy did not make a threat at all. He expressed himself in a way that cleary upsets people but it can be nothing more than colorful speech. There is a huge difference between some guy saying that he is about to kill a bunch of children and a guy frustrated by the noise of children playing to remark that he would not mind killing them all. One is a threat and one is not.
Frankly America has gone a bit nuts on the threat business. But when it gets to the point of one saying I wouldn't mind eating a quart of cherry icecream equalling the statement that I am going to eat a quart of cherry icecream and the law gets involved we really need some intervention.
The obvious goal of any police department is to prevent crime, not just react after it's happened. If the guy had just said something as a bad job I'd like to think he'd be questioned, at worst, and quickly released.
The thing that seems to be overlooked is that some evidence was found that doesn't cast this guy in a good light. He dropped out of school and was found in possession of a few guns. That, in conjunction with his comments makes this a concern. Obviously, that could all be a series of coincidences. But then, making terrorist threats is a crime. That said, I'd like to read the comments for myself.
For the record, anyone buying $270 sneakers is an idiot. I think back to when I was in high school and a pair of Air Jordans was over $100 putting them, after inflation, not far off from what these cost. My particular school had a high poverty rate, at least as the government defines it. Very few drove cars to school. It was a status symbol doing so, even if it was an old beater. But there were tons of kids walking around with overpriced Nike's. The trendy thing to do was to buy from a certain shop downtown which took advantage by marking everything up. So you'd have these kids competing on how expensive their outfits were. They'd boast about how much they spent on a jersey, baggy jeans and sneakers.
A handful of kids would go out and get a crap job paying $8 and would think that they were on track for a successful career, convinced that school was no longer important. This all so that they could sustain their spending habits. This was back in the days when beepers were all the rage. I can't imagine what the hell it's like now.
It's messed up that people are still reacting differently because this was an online post than if it were a postcard or a phone call or note tacked to a utility pole. In other words, I fail to see what makes this newsworthy at all, let alone "news for nerds."
More than 70% of people in the U.S. are Internet users. That works out to over 200 million. OMG! It happened on teh IntarWebz! is a reaction that's about 15 years out of date.
Now if only the legal system would catch up with the new normalcy ...
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Okay.. 2nd time posting...
This is NOT a threat! He supposedly posted "watching kids and wouldn't mind killing them". He never said "I'm GOING to kill these kids I'm watching"
How do you know that this guy wasn't watching some kids tear up his lawn or something similar and posted something stupid and meaningless?
I really hope I can get out of this backwards country before we lose all our rights, I hate it so much here.... Does saying that make me a "terrorist" now? So pissed off about stupid cr*p like this.
The difference between saying "I wouldn't mind" and " I am going too" are paramount. He didn't commit a crime by saying it wouldn't bother him, if he did.
But it is Kalifornia....
It would make it easy to collect your prime suspect earlier.
Because it is better to prevent a crime rather than solve one committed?
You see, this is the reason why hate speech or Neo-Nazi screed is banned in EU countries.
Aside from the other things which paint the accused in a bad way, short of him confessing to having issued the terrorist threat, I have to wonder what evidence they are using to identify him. We have established over and over that an IP address is not a valid identifier. Even if they siezed his computer and verified the message came from his computer and only his fingerprints were on it, it doesn't prove he sent the message beyond a reasonable doubt. We have ample evidence that criminals don't need to crack your home network to be on it. We have ample evidence that a criminal doesn't have to physically touch a machine to make use of it.
To make this comment seems incredibly stupid to the effect that it even seems unlikely to me that he did it at all... that someone playing a dirty joke on him is responsible.
I have lots of reasonable doubt on my end.
That's referring to the post he made that they responded to. He didn't just say, "Ah man, I'd like to shoot kids who get expensive sneakers." It was more like, "Here's how it's going down..."
If you don't think this is grounds to go after someone (fine), then when should we pursue a terrorist(ish) comment online? How descriptive do you have to get?
"With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone."
Good! Maybe we can get to work on people who post comments on YouTube now!
I'm pretty sure that what this guy said was stupid, inappropriate, etc. but does it really warrant him being arrested and held on $1M bail? Did he have a prior criminal record? The article makes no mention of it so I will assume that he does not. Ok, so they found some guns in his house but does that mean that he was intending to shoot people or was he going duck hunting?
And what exactly is a "terrorist threat" anyhow? These days it seems like it's whatever the government wants it to mean. I've got a feeling that if this guy really wanted to go kill some kids he would have just done it without posting it on ESPN's website first.
Basically I think it's an overreaction on ESPN's part and on the part of the police. This reminds me a little bit of the incident that happened when an ESPN writer wrote an article about Jeremy Lin, the NY Knicks basketball player and used the phrase "chink in the armor" somewhere in the story. They fired the guy over it. I think a simple apology, which he did make by the way, should have sufficed. Ever since then I get my sports news elsewhere.
that is when i saw a guy get shot for his Jordans in Reno. just this week a guy was shot dead in a park in Stockton, CA for his gold chain and shoes.. you cant stop dumb people from being dumb unless you let natural selection take effect. too many doctors saving the lives of dummys who then but expensive shoes and then some other dummy shoots them, they get burried and fed the magotts so forth, cows get fed, shoes are made and bought... circle of life.
This will be counted as a foiled terrorist attack.
I am somewhat sure you're just guessing here; venting some anger, or whatnot. My personal experience is exactly the opposite: mental health "professionals" after some time having dealt with mentally ill people have to think about their budget. Or maybe there are other reasons why they call cries for help "behaviour that has nothing to do with mental illness". Maybe it had something to do that I was perceived as a middle class white guy with a good education (which is of much use if one's severely depressed) and hence so much more opportunities compared to a low educated poor alcoholic. In other words: I had no good reason to be so damn depressed. And those meds? Well, they just work right? And if not, you're not cooperating with them. That was actually what I was been told, no kidding. And no they didn't mean that I was not taking the medication or not taking it properly. No explanation was given...
So yeah, on one occasion the police had to step in -- mental health "pros" were called but refused to come; it was just behavior -- and they were extremely caring and genuinely concerned about my health. They took me to the police station and make some mental health "professionals" show up, and I was taken in (odd how they suddenly changed their opinion).
My experience is that mental health "professionals" are all caring the first 3 times you show up. You get pills, etc. But if things don't work out soon, as they don't quite often; SSRIs et al don't work for everybody or: there's still no cure for depression that just works, you become an attention seeker that can be safely ignored (or should be handled by the law) and before you know it you're diagnosed with Borderline Personality Order. Not after some research and some interviews, no, just like that. Since to other's in the field it means: "beware, major asshole who doesn't want to get 'cured'".
In short, in my experience you're very mistaken. A lot of mental health "professionals" are in my experience worse than "the law".
Finally, the above is one example. I've been living in 3 different countries and my experience in 2 was somewhat identical. Both countries that are considered civilised and having good (mental) health. Things are now a little better (still clinical depressed) so no experience yet with country 3.
While I am skeptical of governments who punish bad thoughts, I think in this case we're facing a practical decision. A surprising number of people who are about to do horrible things announce their intentions. The best way to get them help is to put them in the hands of people who can actually stop them. A psychiatrist cannot necessarily do so, even if required to report the statements of their patients to the police. However, a police officer can immediately arrest this person, take away his or her weapons, and avoid the possible worse outcome of having the person become a perp (as you say), shoot up some kids, and then get shot by the cops.
Because they might arrest you for the same thing. Are we so PC that absurdity is the new norm? Personally, I have a shopping list of people I'd like to see gone from this planet, but if say that I'd love to kill them myself, even though I'm sane enough not to, I'm going to go to jail. I guess freedom of speach is not limited to "I support whatever the law will require me to in order to stay out of jail".
Are they going to arrest all the soccer moms that have this on their iPod? from the song... All the other kids with the pumped up kicks You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet Read more at http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858837818/#KzMuORE2PmSy1RHV.99
Doubtless ESPN advocated for such a large amount so after saying the number, Stewart Scott can add: "Boo-Yah!!"
I clicked through several links before giving up on finding a direct quote of the threat. What is the point of discussing this without knowing what the man wrote?
No, no; you missed the buried lede. He's a non-white male, therefore not a rights-defending Patriot, but a gun-wielding murder machine - and an unscrutable one, at that.
I guess a round of applause is due to the 9/11 terrorists and their relative entities. Their actions have made the U.S. respond to stupid free speech statements in a way that is equivalent to a terrorist threat, AND treated as such!
Congrats, congrats.
So they monitor the board and report anyone they don't like to the police ? Isn't that the point of moderators ?
What benefit does anyone gain if everyone is running to the police about "threats" ? How does espn benefit from this ? What about the commentators ?
It just seems stupid, where if you disagree with something and start spouting off about it, they can clobber you IRL.
And it seems like ALL companies are doing this, facebook, google, aol, M$, apple. What do these companies actually gain by being government pigeons ?
ESPN is protecting itself from any future negligence lawsuits that might have occured had the guy actually made good on his threats. Reporting his threat to leo's would absolve them from any future liability.
... "whoops, did I type that out loud?"
I don't think he should go to jail for an off-handed comment like that. He could have just meant that they're annoying kids. I think that his co-workers, family, and friends should be the ones that pay attention if he might be headed towards a shooting spree...if we arrest everyone for writing a comment that "sounds" bad we're making a mockery of free speech. And you'll get so many false positives it's ridiculous. Has anyone else noticed that every single crime is now being labeled a "terrorist act"? It seems like every crime I read about in the news is labeled as being "terrorist" related. Even when the crime has absolutely nothing to do with bombs or anything traditionally considered to be terrorism.
He just said that he wouldn't mind killing someone. How on earth is that a specific threat? Thought crime, anyone?
...internet watches you. No matter which party happens to be in charge at the time.
And I find it interesting how the fact that he owned several guns was described as evidence of terrorist intent. Maybe if they were unregistered. But in that case they have an illegal possesion of fire-arms charge that would stick to him regardless of freedom of speech issues.
Or maybe they arrested him because he's unemployed and living with his parents...
Awaiting more info. As the article mentions, $1M is very high for a terrorist threat charge, so maybe there's unreleased evidence. Or maybe the DA is up for re-election.
Just one controversial call at the plate could result in thousands of arrests for making terroristic threats against the umpire...
He admits to having committed a thought crime when he was a kid. He also used the "k" word in his post along with the "b" word which is irrefutable proof that he is a bad person with bad intentions.
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
he was arrested for investigation of making terrorist threats
Does that mean most of the work of the DHS is illegal?
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Of course they don't know I'm only using blanks...
Everyone panic. Such bullshit.