Teenage League of Legends Player Jailed For Months For Facebook Joke

Kohath writes "Eighteen-year-old Justin Carter of Austin, Texas was arguing with a friend on Facebook about League of Legends back in February. After being called 'insane,' he responded with 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.' Below that, he wrote 'lol' and 'jk.' He was arrested March 27, 2013 and has been in jail since that time. A hearing to review his case is scheduled for July 1, 2013. His parents have launched a change.org petition to convince the authorities to release their son."

Comments

Teenager?

[ugen]

Is it me, or is something wrong with a statement "18 year old teenager". I kinda thought "teenagers" ended right about 16, and by 18 we should have, at least in theory, a fully functional member of society, who should be a little more responsible with words. Especially when those words are are direct threat to health and lives of others.

In any case, "j/k" and "lol" does not excuse a sociopath, nor does it guarantee that a mentally ill person will not actually act upon the threat. It would, of course, be better if authorities investigated this faster and, hopefully, found that no such threat exists.
Aside from that, we don't know all the circumstances of the case (except for what one side with vested interest tells us). Perhaps such threat does really exist.

I'll reserve my raging for something else, if you do not mind.

Re:Oh, Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

so let me get this right. someone from another country some 2K miles away from the situation at hand decided to meddle in something that was not their concern?

Which is what Americans do all the fucking time.

You know, regime change, exporting copyright laws, generally acting like douchebags ...

Re:So much for...

[Kenja]

It means no such thing. Not sure where this idea comes from, but I blame the schools for failing to teach the Constitution and Bill of Rights properly.