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Teenagers Charged With 'Intimidation' After Sharing Siri's Helpful Response For A School Shooting (nwitimes.com)
A 13-year-old boy visiting family in Indiana has been charged with "intimidation", according to the Northwest Indiana Times:
The boy allegedly said to Siri, iPhone's voice assistant, "I am going to shoot up a school," according to a news release from the Valparaiso Police Department. Siri then replied with a list of multiple Valparaiso schools near his location. The boy, identified as a Chesterton Middle School student, posted a screenshot of the inquiry and response on social media, which was reported to Chesterton police by the boy's social media contacts.
Chesterton police then contacted the Valparaiso Police Department, which launched an investigation into the possible threat. Valparaiso officers determined the boy made no direct threat to a specific person, school or school system and that he had no access to weapons -- ultimately stating the picture was posted on social media as a joke. "The threat is not believed to be credible at this time; however, these types of communications are taken very seriously by the Valparaiso Police Department and our community," police stated in a news release.
A 14-year-old was also taken into custody, and is also being held in a juvenille detention center, facing charges of intimidation and "criminal recklessness with a handgun" over related photographs with weapons.
"Come on kids. It isn't funny..." reads one comment on the police department's Facebook page. "How many of you are going to be detained before you realize it?"
"Thank you for taking it seriously, and prosecuting it accordingly," added another commenter. "'I was joking' is not a defense. Hopefully juvie knocks some sense into this kid."
"I hope he's prosecuted for this! Totally not funny and as a parent I'm taking any threats against schools serious!" reads another comment -- though at least one person directed their scorn somewhere else.
"Sounds like Siri needs to be re-programmed."
Chesterton police then contacted the Valparaiso Police Department, which launched an investigation into the possible threat. Valparaiso officers determined the boy made no direct threat to a specific person, school or school system and that he had no access to weapons -- ultimately stating the picture was posted on social media as a joke. "The threat is not believed to be credible at this time; however, these types of communications are taken very seriously by the Valparaiso Police Department and our community," police stated in a news release.
A 14-year-old was also taken into custody, and is also being held in a juvenille detention center, facing charges of intimidation and "criminal recklessness with a handgun" over related photographs with weapons.
"Come on kids. It isn't funny..." reads one comment on the police department's Facebook page. "How many of you are going to be detained before you realize it?"
"Thank you for taking it seriously, and prosecuting it accordingly," added another commenter. "'I was joking' is not a defense. Hopefully juvie knocks some sense into this kid."
"I hope he's prosecuted for this! Totally not funny and as a parent I'm taking any threats against schools serious!" reads another comment -- though at least one person directed their scorn somewhere else.
"Sounds like Siri needs to be re-programmed."
The land of panic and fear.
It's very much commenting on the situation. I know he's a kid, but AFAIK fundamental rights still apply when it comes to prosecution. His school can punish/expel him, but I would think the cops are gonna get a call from the ACLU...
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That's the worst kind of stupid (perhaps intended mainly to garner effect, in which case it's hardly any different from the original case of Siri's adolescent accomplice). Really, it's complete BS that the police detained this child in the hope of "knocking some sense into him".
The police respond because they can't not respond, no matter how they assess the risk, because if a school shooting did follow from this, no matter how long the chain of events, and they had done nothing over the first comical wisp of smoke, they'd be roasted alive.
The preadolescent brain is not a reliable thing. It's changing in massive ways, and not very well equipped to even notice those changes in any systematic way.
I had a friend around the same age who once flew an aluminum foil kite into a pole-top power transformer. Kevin had big dreams, and he was always up to something, but he was just one of those kids with less than normal common sense. I liked him a lot.
After the kite explosion—yes, an actual explosion—boy did he ever get plunked down on the couch for a quadraphonic fusillade (both parents, both hydro workers). He was white around the edges for an entire school week. That was the appropriate response: a tiny taste of every adult in Dodge giving him the what for in WWE roof-raising double tag team.
Juvee would have scared (scarred) Kevin into never emerging from his basement ever again. It would not have knocked the least iota of "common sense" into his weirdly developed adolescent brain.
There have been more than a few school shootings where the shooter had posted shit like this and people shrugged it off as "no threat here, kinda funny." Then they cart bodies out of the classrooms while people wonder why the police didn't take action on pretty blatant warning signs. Now that people are doing their due diligence, retards like you are shouting "OVERSTEP! OVERSTEP!" There's no god damn winning here.
Having to grow up around paranoid, cowardly excessively serious adults who should know better.
Kids need to wise up
No, I'm pretty sure the police need to wise up. This does not sound like something that required action by the police.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Are you completely insane? Kids say and do stupid shit all the time and there is no evidence that he ever actually intended to do anything. Kids are not just small versions of adults, their brains are still developing and you can't expect a 13 year-old to make decisions like an adult. This kid needs counseling. Who seriously thinks it's going to be helpful to anyone to send this kid to juvi? It's certainly not going to help the kid and there's plenty of evidence to support that. I also think you also need professional help and I certainly hope you don't have any children of your own.
Kids need to wise up
No shit, THEY'RE KIDS. Mostly not wise just by virtue of them still having to grow up. I don't understand why societies thirst for blood is so bad that they can't understand that children are not adults.
Kid threatens to shoot up school. Kid faces charges. As it should be.
Unless the threat/joke was actually credible, the kid should not have been charged. Believe it or not, there are ways to discipline children without involving the police and courts.
A major problem in America is that we are over-policed. Crime rates have fallen dramatically over the last three decades, due mainly to demographic, economic, and environmental factors. Yet we have more police than ever. This surfeit of police without enough real work to do, leads to criminalization of silly things like inappropriate teenage social media posts.
Kids CAN'T wise up. They are called "kids" for a damn reason.
Every day a whole new crop of them is born, and every single one of them is dumb as a post! They don't remember what happened to some older kid before they were born! They aren't some stagnant group that can retain its learned wisdom from one year to the next!
It is in the nature of youth that it lacks the maturity and wisdom to know what the consequences of pranks like this will be. The problem here is not that kids are lacking in some sort of wisdom that they should have, but rather, that they have far too much communicative reach. The Internet gives every single kid an audience that no kid is mature enough to address.
In an earlier generation, this prank would not be possible. Not only because Siri didn't exist, but because there would be no social media account to post to, and no audience of people to respond to the post and freak out. These technological enhancements are being made available to people that are too young to use the responsibly.
So, "kids" will never learn not to do this, period. We need to restrict their access to these technologies, just as we restrict their access to motor vehicles and alcohol.
there are ways to discipline children without involving the police and courts
In this situation I can understand the police seeking to assure that there is in fact no threat.
I think they can also play a role in scaring a kid shitless in a "Dude, we nearly shot you. Stop fucking about!" kind of way that helps the idiot understand how silly he was while at the same time making him glad the police realised he was just being stupid.
Maybe I expect too much from the police in America.
This. And a bias towards making anything that makes "g.g.g.g.guns!!!" look bad. Kind of why I quit listening to most media outlets now. Look at how many times T____ has been proved to be Workin' with the Ruskies---only to need to retract the story. Our the recent condemnation of a boy in a MAGA hat just standing and smiling, while the Viet Vet Native American who was praised for everything---oh, by the way, tried to disrupt a Catholic mass. BTW, when was the most recent school shooting vs Police getting shot?
Wrong. He told Siri he was going to shoot up a school, probably to see how Siri would react. Siri's reaction was. let's say "unfortunate", so he posted it.
I remember my 4th grade teacher explaining how America was better than Russia because we have freedom of speech but in Russia you had to watch what you say or you could be hauled away by the police.....
Apparently it's not reasonable to expect adults to know the difference between a terrorist threat and teasing Siri, why hold 13 year olds to a higher standard?
Had they not actually charged him with a serious crime and hauled him off to juvie, you might have a point.
Instead, all he has learned is that anyone who says the police are his friends or that we have freedom of speech is full of crap.
By tracking down you mean visit a kids public social media feed and view an edgy video over the caption "lol wut?"
Maybe send an officer so that he understands the gravity of the situation, and put an embarrassing message on his his social media account from the local fuzz.
Our justice system ruins lives. The kid is a very dumb 13 year old. He needs his toys taken away, and his internet access restricted, not criminal rehabilitation.
There is no "justice" to serve here. Only court fines and shattered dreams.
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Just think, if he was only brown he would have gotten invitations to Facebook and the whitehouse 3 years ago.
Why are two totally unrelated cases mixed up in this one post?
1. A 13 year old asks Siri a joke question and posts photos of the result.
2. A 14 year old posts photos of himself posing with a weapon.
Apart from both being young boys there is no correlation.
The first case is definitely not worth even investigating.
In the the second I question why a boy at that age has unsupervised access to a weapon and if he was supervised, why photos were taken and published. The parents should be investigated.