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Student Arrested For Using Phone App To 'Shoot' Classmates

New submitter Lord_Breetai sends word that a Louisiana high school student has been arrested for using a mobile app to simulate shooting his classmates. The app overlays an FPS-style gun and UI over a real background seen through the device's camera. The student tried it out and then unwisely posted a video of it on YouTube. Another student's parent saw the video and reported it to authorities. Major Wolfe of the local police said, "You can't ignore it. We don't know at what time that game becomes reality. He said it was a result of him being frustrated and tired of being bullied. He said that he had no intentions of hurting anybody. We have to take all threats seriously and we have no way of knowing that without investigating and getting to the bottom of it. With all the school shooting we've had in the United States, it's just not a very good game to be playing at this time." The boy is now facing criminal charges for terrorizing and interference of the operation of a school.

45 of 706 comments (clear)

  1. Really? by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they'd discovered his Whip-App, he would have been accused of racism too.
    Not to mention the beer app, since he's under 21.

    1. Re:Really? by ZosX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is fucking unreal. Thought crime to the fucking max man.

    2. Re:Really? by gagol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This generation will be so fucked up, its not even funny anymore.

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
    3. Re:Really? by ZosX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      when I was a kid nobody would have thought twice about this. now this kid is in jail. he's the one that was bullied. i was bullied a lot in grade school, so I fully understand his frustrations and anger. next the "crushing his head" skit will be banned. our future is fucking fucked.

    4. Re:Really? by ZosX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      and let me add....he's 15. a minor. charges? wtf is this country coming to that even kids are now criminals?! WTF AMERICA??

    5. Re:Really? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The root of the problem is that crime rates have fallen dramatically over the last two decades, while the number of police officers has not. The cops don't have enough real crime to deal with, so they fill the vacuum with make believe crime instead. The solution is to either reduce the number of police, or to refocus them on community policing and crime reduction rather than "making arrests".

    6. Re:Really? by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 5, Informative
    7. Re:Really? by hodet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ya lets not help the kid socially integrate into his surroundings. Press criminal charges for his thoughts. They should be grateful they got an actual clue to a problem rather then trying to suppress his attempts to deal with his situation and make his day more bearable.

    8. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hard to say in this case, we could just go "FREEDOM!" and complain the kid is being punished. It is an odd thing to do though. Can you imagine the repercussions for the staff if he showed up with an actual gun one day and they had done nothing? I have no love for teachers and administrative staff (they're boring leeches on society) but they would be fired if not brought up on charges.

      Yes! We should punish children for having an imagination that does not conform to the acceptably Politically Correct norm! If teachers discover such a Politically Incorrect imagination exists and they do not report the child for reprogramming then the teacher should be punished severely! After they make the standardized Politically Correct apology sans visible bruises and contusions of course.

    9. Re:Really? by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Zero Tolerance: A regulatory philosophy that administrators hide behind to avoid having to make decisions and subsequently defend those decisions.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    10. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you punish and take away people's means of non-violent stress relief, do not be surprised when they snap and resort to violent means.

    11. Re:Really? by Dodgy+G33za · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "they're boring leeches on society"

      Teachers? Really. Of all the people in the world that could be called this (drug dealers, arms merchants, derivatives traders, merchant bankers, marketing consultants) it is a very sad state of affairs when people think this. There are lots of children in this world crying out for education.

    12. Re:Really? by PRMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mean like "If I'm going to face criminal charges anyway, I might as well have shot the bully..." Makes sense in a twisted sort of logical way.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    13. Re:Really? by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well can you blame them. What is the first thing that happens when kid does something wrong.
      "WHY DIDN'T ANYONE SEE THESE CLEAR WARNING SIGNS!" This kid played first person shooters, read gun magazines, and didn't get along with the popular kids! Just like millions of other people....

      Just like in the old days they used to say, "no one ever got fired for buying IBM". No school administrator ever got in trouble for putting a kid in jail as a potential danger. Man I am glad they didn't have first person shooters when I was in school. I know for a fact that at least one of my friends if not myself would have made a map of the school. Of course that person and everyone that played that map would go to jail for planning a terrorist attack.

      And the parents will not stop it because it is always better to throw another persons kid in jail to protect your own.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    14. Re:Really? by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

      Although I think there were significantly less of these back in the day.

      Assume no longer. Looks like the decade from 1900-1910 had the most shootings, but it seems massacres were rarer.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    15. Re:Really? by fredprado · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sure it is. Politically correctness is basically a set of acceptable behaviors to which any deviation is considered atrocious and punishable. It is the attempt to control and conform people to the same ideas by force. What he did was completely harmless, and I personally find very fun, as I find fun to play Quake or GTA, for example.

    16. Re:Really? by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Informative

      When you were a kid the press hadn't sensationalized all the murder sprees at school.

      Although I think there were significantly less of these back in the day.

      http://reason.com/blog/2012/12/17/are-mass-shootings-becoming-more-common

      those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

      "There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

      The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer....

      Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

    17. Re:Really? by Blue+Stone · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is clear - those people in authority in your country - they are incapable of a proportionate response - their judgment is terrible; faulty; bordering on the insane: they are unfit to govern, lacking basic reason abilities and judgment. There seems to be no facility or investment in the concept of "is this fair?".

      You have an anemy within your country and it is the ignorant, incompetent aresholes who are running it; they are unfit to weild the power they have been given.

      --
      Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
    18. Re:Really? by Twanfox · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You have obviously never indulged in flights of fancy or other thought experiments that are fun to explore but not fun to live. To take this stupid analogy further, let's explore...

      Playing World of Warcraft is rehearsal for killing the hordes of orcs.

      Playing Payday 2 is rehearsal for robbing banks and shooting cops.

      Playing Left 4 Dead 2 is rehearsal for the next Zombie Apocalypse, because you know it's coming.

      My child had a princess party once. Surely, she's royalty, or soon to be married into it.

      Get a grip, man. Sometimes playing a game is just a game. Crimes need to be based on real actions and real intentions rather than what one would indulge in for a game. Too many games would be unacceptable real world behavior, and yet we have them because it's fun to play them when there are no lasting penalties for those kinds of actions.

    19. Re:Really? by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So the kid was bullied, and he fantasized about getting even. I'd bet the majority of kids who get bullied (and there are a LOT of them) do the same thing (they just don't post it on Youtube, which was pretty stupid). Still, how does that make the former (which involved actual aggression) "kids will be kids" and the latter (purely imagination) a serious criminal act?!

  2. what is happening to this country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Zero tolerance, complete risk avoidance, and neopuritanism while half the country cares more about what happens after you die than the encroaching totalitarianism.

  3. Oh good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He said it was a result of him being frustrated and tired of being bullied.

    and what a better way to deal with this than let the police and justice system bully him instead

  4. What... by Ruzgfpegk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So they don't think it's a problem if he's bullied, but if he plays a game where he does something about it (because no one else will ever do anything) he becomes the bad guy? And they still wonder why they have school shootings?

  5. SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid by lesincompetent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We have to take all threats seriously [...]

    Of course you have to but no, an app is not a threat.

  6. Solidarity by hammeraxe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think all his classmates should download the app, make similar videos and upload them to youtube just to show how ridiculous this is. They can't arrest them all.
    The guy is facing CRIMINAL CHARGES for fucks sake!

    1. Re:Solidarity by silas_moeckel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only people that should be facing criminal charges are the school admins and police that were involved. The kid is 15. What moron make an interfering with a school a criminal law??? It's the inmates responsibility to attempt escape, POW 101 :)

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
    2. Re:Solidarity by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 5, Interesting

      CRIMINAL CHARGES

      I'm wondering exactly what law he broke... Really, he had no weapon - just a phone. The next thing you'll hear about is some kid being arrested because he gave a dirty look at someone, because surely he was "thinking" of killing somebody.

      I hope a false arrest charge is brought against those responsible for this waste of public resources.

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
  7. "We have to take all threats seriously" by kthreadd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No you don't. You should use your brain first.

    1. Re:"We have to take all threats seriously" by kthreadd · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except there was no incident. No one was harmed and there was no intention to harm. He was playing an augmented reality game, that was all.

  8. App to simulate arresting him? by linebackn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Isn't there an app so simulate arresting him? That sounds like it would have been more appropriate.

  9. Unsure of reality? by KeensMustard · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Are you an officer of the LAW?

    Are you unable to discern when computer games have become reality?

    Here's some helpful signs for our boys in blue:

    Scenario 1: It's quite dark, there are men wearing suits with bright flouro stripes. Jeff Bridges is there. COMPUTER GAME HAS BECOME REALITY.

    Scenario 2: You like to play starfighter. You have just beaten the high score, and a man in a hat is inviting you to go for a ride in his car that can fly. YOUR GAME IS ABOUT TO BECOME REALITY.

    Scenario 3: You are hacked into a computer. Is it calling itself joshua? Is it seemingly reluctant to play Thermonuclear War? YOUR GAME IS ABOUT TO BECOME REALITY.

    Scenario 4: Your life doesn't resemble Scenarios 1 - 3? You life is not a computer game.

    Sorry.

    Play Again (Y/N)?

  10. terrorism? by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 5, Informative

    who the fuck was harmed? no one. interfering with school ops? when? how?

    The US has become a nation of fucking pussies. Thankfully it seems that a lot of under 25's are rejecting the fucked up views of their parents and grandparents. The late babyboom and near postboom generations have been a disaster in just about every way possible.

    1. Re:terrorism? by scotts13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      who the fuck was harmed? no one. interfering with school ops? when? how?

      Indeed. Other than by the meddling actions of one parent, no one at the school would ever have known. No one was "terrorized" (other than this one student), the school was not interfered with. But NOW, we have an individual that know authority is capricious and unfair. Perhaps he will lash out...

  11. Re:YADOUS by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Your post is also an unbelievable display of stupidity. Your solution to what is clearly now a pervasive problem in this country is to ignore it and "move along." Seriously? Sure, there is a lot of idiocy in this whole scenario, but when idiocy results in the harmless posting of a video on youtube that is one thing. The idiocy of arresting the kid is quite another. The first was a commission of error by a high school student and nobody lost their freedom. The second is an actual crime. A grown man in a position of authority has used that authority to take away the freedom of a youth to cover his own ass and appear "tough on crime." I fully intended to post contact information to this idiot so that we all could send him a note telling him what a criminal he truly is, but The Terrebone Parish Website (administration info in link, presumably) is down at the moment, so at least not everyone is irresponsible enough to see this and shrug it off with an air of irresponsibility.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  12. I'm Crushing Your Head! by Bob9113 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine if he had been the kind of psychopath that would image -- and even trivialize -- crushing people's skulls.

  13. Games and reality by icannotthinkofaname · · Score: 4, Funny

    We don't know at what time that game becomes reality.

    That's a good question. To the end of answering it, I'd like to be the kid's defense attorney for this case, because I've played through all of the Ace Attorney games, and I'm looking forward to the new one coming out soon in English.

    This proposal is a simple one. If I am not allowed to defend the kid in court based on my experience with law video games, then they can't use video games to call him a murderer, so the prosecution has no case on those grounds. If I am allowed to defend him just because I've played some law video games, then we are unlikely to be able to make a decent defense case (but these are criminal charges, so reasonable doubt is a thing).

    If the kid can be a murderer because of a mobile game, then I should be able to be his attorney because of Phoenix Wright.

    --
    Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
  14. It's almost like they WANT more shootings. by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With all the school shooting we've had in the United States, it's just not a very good game to be playing at this time." The boy is now facing criminal charges for terrorizing and interference of the operation of a school.

    So, instead of just counseling the lad, and maybe talking to teachers and investigating the bullying, we're not going to fix the situation, but make an example out of the kid for doing the equivalent of making a "gun" with his finger and saying "bang". In fact, the over-reaction by the school will just ensure that the very kind of people who actually DO shoot up schools will not go to the grownups for help for fear of being jailed as a terrorist for their thoughtcrimes.

    Will you scared little fuckers actually do anything I want if I drum up threats of your woman and children being harmed? Of course you will. School Bus Drivers kill more kids in accidents than school shootings do. You Fucking morons are so easy to control. Keep the environment, make more examples to make the environment worse and thus gain more control through fear. We've got you to acclimate children to not walking home without supervision, despite child predator numbers being at an all time low, and acclimated to wearing RFID tags and getting retinal scans for no good reason.

    1984's big brother is OK so long as he's "protecting" kids from harm, not oppressing adults? Proitp: Your indoctrination starts when you're yet young. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Soon we'll have you implanting microchips in babies that ping a wireless network, so they don't get lost... And brining your kids up to be the model dystopian citizens. Fools.

  15. Re:YADOUS by Zumbs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this article is a telling display of a society moving in the wrong direction. A boy was being bullied and his cry for help (the video) has now lead to his arrest, putting him in an even worse situation. In a sane society, it would have lead to him getting help to tackle the bullying and get on with his life.

    --
    The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
  16. A threat is a threat by jeorgen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, if you would send a letter to someone saying they will die, then that it is most obviously a threat. If instead, you would send a drawing, showing them dying, it would still be a threat. If you publicly or in a way that at least can bee seen by the persons depicted, post a video of them getting shot, that is still a threat. Now, I am not familiar with this app, and it might be that it does such an unrealistic job as to it not being something that can be taken seriously, but if it does a good job, and somebody decides to post it or send it so that it gets the attention of the people in the film, well then it is a threat. Think like this: If "three fingers Joe" of the mob posted the same video, I think it would be pretty clear to see that it is a threat.

  17. Re:Different perspective... by mynamestolen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes it needs action as you say and the action is called counselling, listening, fixing the bullying problem. You Americans live in a fucked society. There, I've said it again. Damn, I'll lose karma.

    --
    work in progress
  18. In other news by gerardrj · · Score: 4, Funny

    A 7 year old was arrested for terroristic actions after tossing an airplane across the classroom and it hit the wall, knocking a "teacher of the year" plaque slightly askew. The stunt reportedly tossed the airplane without any reaction from classmates. When one of the students relayed the story to her parents they decided to call the police to warn of the anti-social behavior. When asked, Police Chief Marny Logan said "We had to take it seriously, you never when he'll switch from paper airplanes to real ones. We can't teach kids that it is okay to fly aircraft in to buildings."

    In other news: using chalk to draw in the street is found to increase the risk of future graffiti crime by 43%. Children who stick objects in their nose will one day use a straw and accidentally snort cocaine.

    --
    Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
  19. Re:Will be?? by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sense of entitlement? You mean expecting to be able to find a living wage job and have college largely paid for by the government?

    They don't expect 6 figures and to run the company in 2 years, they expect to be able to find a living wage job. Unfortunately because of cheapskates like you, for a lot of them making 6 figures is what it's going to take to pay off college and buy a house in a reasonable period of time.

    It's always interesting how arrogant old people like to ignore the fact that when they were young, college was heavily subsidized and we hadn't figured out that it was possible to send jobs overseas rather than offering them up to the people at the bottom. What's more, there was little competition from other countries and the rich didn't expect to get all the profits of other people's work.

    They're fucked alright, but mostly because of people like you got yours and to hell with anybody else.

  20. Re:Guns are bad by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Stop with the stupid "right to bear arms" crap and stuff like this will not bother anyone.

    Buh? And also, buh? Nobody is suggesting that kids have the right to take actual firearms to school, so how on earth did you get from there to here?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  21. Re:Pffff by PRMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    What's next? Arresting pre-schoolers who point a finger and go 'Bang Bang!!" ???

    What do you mean "next"? You missed that one?

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/maryland-grader-suspended-pointing-finger-shape-gun/story?id=18123294 (Warning: auto-video. Hit Mute first.)

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  22. Re:Wait, wait! by 0111+1110 · · Score: 5, Informative

    At the very least, the posting of the video constitutes a death threat, which demands justice.

    No it does not constitute a death threat. A death threat is, "I'm going to kill you now, AC". A video game is just a video game now matter what the pixels may or may not look like.

    Let me say that again. AC, I am going to murder you sometime very soon. I own a gun. An assault rifle. I am going to kill you with it. This IS going to happen. So you might want to prepare a will or something. Perhaps flee whatever country you live in as well. Just to be safe.

    The only problem is that I have no idea who you are and no way to find out and I don't actually own a gun. Do you see why threats are required to be credible and why the person making the threat is expected to have some realistic means of carrying it out?

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.