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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."
He wasn't actually making a direct threat at any place or thing...just shooting off his mouth.
Sad that you can be arrested for just a general saying of something.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
A teenager being sarcastic? No way that *never* happens.
The statements “lol” and “jk” — meaning “laughing out loud” and “just kidding” — indicate that Justin’s statement was entirely sarcastic, said his father.
But a Canadian woman who saw the post looked up Carter’s Austin address, determined that it was near an elementary school, and called the police.
Fucking Canadians...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Here in the US it is impossible to take two steps forward without taking a step and a half back.
This week has been pretty scary in those regards...
Week? Last decade, surely.
More Twoson than Cupertino
A Change.org petition? Do people still think those have any relevance to the people they petition? Has a Change.org petition ever had any meaningful effect?
On top of the people actually hurt, we are happy to create some more needless suffering.
Your tax dollars at work here people.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
The real shame here is that we're hearing about this now, after the kid's been in jail for 3 months. WTF?
Really, how could he get away with saying something like this:
eat their still, beating hearts.
That is entirely the wrong place to put a comma. How could a heart be both still and beating? If you really have to have some kind of punctuation there, "still-beating heart" would be acceptable.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
I was wondering why that black van was parked in front of my house for the past 2 weeks. My wife offered them some coffee, and they just pointed guns at her. Maybe I shouldn't go back home anytime soon.
Black, huh? In my one experience with asshole government agents doing surveillance, they were rollin' in a gold Escalade.
FYI no, they weren't watching me, they were using my parking lot to watch the meth cooks in the trailer park across the way. Which I was OK with.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In case anyone wonders what crime he could be accused of with those words, from the article: "Authorities charged him with making a terrorist threat. If convicted, he will face eight years in prison."
I also found this bit from the article hilarious: "“Justin was the kind of kid who didn’t read the newspaper,” said [father] Jack Carter. “He didn’t watch television. He wasn’t aware of current events. These kids, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t understand the implications. They don’t understand.”
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The teen's stupid, the woman's human waste, and... the authorities don't know what jk means. When he gets out I hope they sue for 1st amendment rights violations. Whoever issued that warrant is the real monster here.
"Why should facebook posts by a teen in Austin TX even be visible to a woman in Canada?"
Why shouldn't they? Unless he marked his post private or friends only, anyone can see it.
Common sense should tell you that.
Contrast that to Alec Baldwin, who was making a direct threat: Alec Baldwin Melts Down On Twitter, Threatens To 'F*ck Up' Reporter
http://gawker.com/alec-baldwin-melts-down-on-twitter-threatens-to-fuck-604856776
I wonder if the rich still have their rights?
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
"is something wrong with a statement "18 year old teenager". I kinda thought "teenagers" ended right about 16, "
SevenTEEN
EighTEEN
NineTEEN
If someone high up in the federal government puts pressure on a state/county/local government, then that state/county/local government will most likely comply. As it is, it's probably one of many methods they're using to get the word out... I really doubt their thought process is "Whelp, made a change.org petition. Guess that's all I can do."
Land of the sensational, home of the afraid.
Yes, he should know when not to say the bad things! You might not know what they are, so be careful and keep your mouth shut!
Except it wasn't a direct threat.
He's a sociopath, huh? How'd you figure that one out?
And now he's mentally ill?
Hasn't stopped you from casting judgement.
Therefore no amount of abusive, oppressive investigation and imprisonment is too much!
In other news Obama is supporting Syrian rebels who actually did eat the heart of their victims. It is Obama's fault for promoting cannibalism.
This is the age when the humorless will finally get their revenge.
Be aware, we are on to you!
It was probably a confiscated vehicle.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Fallacy: Slippery slope argument.
How can you say that considering all the bullshit coming out of Washington, DC lately? The government always abusing their power? The NSA was able to get away with it for so long because of abuse of the PATRIOT Act. The TSA is constantly going way beyond their original purpose.
The Slippery Slope argument is not only true but it is a fact.
Actually, I can't think of when it's NOT true.
I'm gonna go shoot up a school, perhaps bomb wall street and throw M80's at the white house
jk
jk = just killing
nonsense, anyone can make a statement like that. something is wrong between your ears, you are the one needing mental evaluation as you are a psychological marshmallow.
No, they are MOST CERTAINLY NOT "damned if they do and damned f they don't". There is a big difference between doing an ACTUAL INVESTIGATION, and arresting someone without any critical thought or due process.
If any actual critical thinking was applied here, this kid would not be arrested.
No one has a problem with the police investigating threats. They are not "damned if they do". The problem starts when they just go off arresting people without any thoughts on if, you know, they actually meant whatever was being written.
I had an incident with a black SUV with large, armed men a few years ago. All I did wrong was park in front of the wrong house. Scared the hell out of me, afterwards it just pissed me off that my 4th amendment rights were violated when they searched me and my car with no warrant. They didn't bother asking, they just pointed their tasers at me. Coats read SPD, FBI, and the guy in the ski mask (in July!) had a coat that read DEA. And I'm an old white guy, imagine if I was 20 and black.
Really lessened my respect for cops. No, fuck calling them cops, here's a handle from my youth - PIGS.
Free Martian Whores!
So is this kid from Houston or Austin? I've read it both ways. One of my wife's co-workers had a problem with the pizza delivery guy. Her husband made some choice comments to the little jack-ass. Later that night the cops came a-knockin'. Threw the guy in jail. The little bastard pressed charges of making a terrorist threat. This was in Houston. So no big surprise with this story. The only shocking thing is that we didn't hear about it three months ago.
HPD and friends have a history of shitty things like this. Just last Christmas an off-duty sheriff shot and killed a shoplifter in a Walmart parking lot. He claimed they were trying to run him over. I got pulled over for going 35 in a 35, because it was "almost time" for it to be a school zone. They arrested hundreds at a parking lot for trespassing even though some of them were actually eating at Sonic or shopping at Kmart.
If we have a right, the government can not just claim "saftey first!" and subjugate that right, just because they say. If they can then we never had any rights to begin with and we have a larger problem
This is way too Orwellian and although terrorism is bad, mm'kay, we better find a way to determine the real threats versus the non-real threats. Not too just protect people and their potential futures (which this kid now has none). But, also to not overburden the system with a bunch of gamers saying $h!t.
I not only hope that they dismiss the case, but, purge his record entirely. He won't even be able to get a public trust clearance with this.
For once I actually RTFA, because I couldn't think of a crime this kid could have been charged with. He is charged with "making a terroristic threat."
Then I wondered what that means, feeling a bit surprised that this kid's actions could be interpreted as a terroristic threat (though, I think we can all agree that sometimes summaries on /. and descriptions in news can be innaccurate, which may very well be the case here), so I found this summary of the common elements of the crime of "making a terroristic threat":
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/making-a-terrorist-threat.html
Basically, my conclusion is that, yes, we should all be afraid--This is getting into "thought crime" territory.
No, not anymore. Remember, we no longer have any right to be forgotten. :) Seriously, though, we not leave an indelible mark on the world when we say things on the internet, and future employers will scrutinize us based on that. There's no getting around that. This is particularly an issue in today's economy with floods of peolpe looking for jobs but so few jobs. Employers look for anything superficial to take you out of consideration, and they're not going to hire someone who did some stupid things as a kid in favor or someone who didn't (as far as they can tell).
Well, you're going to have to figure out some way to make kids not be stupid then. After thousands of years of failure, I don't think you will have much luck on that score.
A more prudent approach would be to make adults accept the fact that kids are stupid.
Why is this chap still in jail?
I've read the articles. Maybe my Google-Fu is weak today. But I cannot find anything that explicitly states why either he was denied bail or the bail was set ludicrously high.
Having to go to court for this is silly enough. But did a judge seriously deem this teen so much a threat as to deny him bail? I'd really like to know because it would seem to me a judge is who should have added some sanity to this issue.
Slippery slope is a fallacy only when there is no evidence that the slope exists.
It's well produce proven that government will in fact stretch any powers they are given to the limit. As example, the US federal government was given the power to regulate commerce between the states. Based on that power, they made it illegal to grow vegetables in your home garden, for you to eat. There's nothing interstate about that, and no commerce, but nevertheless govt did that under the interstate commerce clause.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
He wasn't making a threat in jest. He was making a joking interpretation of the word "insane", which had been wrongly applied to him. The point was to underscore the absurdity of the insult. And underscore it he did, with a bright highlighter across the entire state of Texas and the sadistic government operations that go under the banner of "law enforcement" there.