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 d-usa wrote:
Everybody wants tougher laws with more severe punishment.

People just don't want them to apply in situations that they could apply to themselves or people they care about.

Sure, if people are truly guilty.


Anybody with a brain in their head could see that the threat was not a serious one.

To treat the comment seriously enough to warrant jail time just lowers themselves to the same level of stupidity as the loser who said it.


I agree we should investigate all potential threats, and not waste time on the clearly false ones. I would accuse the investigators of wasting tax money on frivolous investigations.

What they should have done after receiving the tip and seeing the facts is to make a phone call and tell the kid not to say such things. Will most certainly scare the *#$^ out of him and not waste any more of the investigator's time than the situation called for.

Heck, it might clean up LoL a little for the players to know for a fact they are being watched.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
It has really nothing to do with "thought policing".

Don't say stupid gak online and stupid gak won't happen to you.

He's a kid... he's a dumb gak kid, who said something stupid.

We were all dumb gak kids...

Does he really need to go to prison for saying a bunch of words?

If a dumb kid smokes weed, does he not face legal charges because he is a dumb kid?
If a dumb kid makes a thread, should he not face legal charges because he is a dumb kid?
If a dumb kid throws a rock at a car, should he not face legal charges because he is a dumb kid?

If the police didn't do anything and the kid would have hurt somebody then the exact same group of people on here would be complaining about how the cops won't do their jobs, won't enforce laws already on the books, etc etc etc...

Erm... no. There's really no way the police can stop something like that from a facebook post.

1) There's not enough man-power to police that

Funny, the fact that cops arrested him seems to suggest otherwise. Somebody was concerned enough to contact the police, the police acted on that complaint. They didn't respond to a random facebook post, they responed to an actual person complaining about the facebook post. This wasn't the police tapping into the NSA database to look for stupid kids posting stupid kids, so it's not a manpower issue.

2) At worst, Facebook should've banned the kid from posting on Facebook. THAT'S the appropriate consequence. Not going to fething jail.

Facebook is not the police. You think the police should have ignored a complaint and told a private company to ban someone?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Everybody wants tougher laws with more severe punishment.

People just don't want them to apply in situations that they could apply to themselves or people they care about.

Sure, if people are truly guilty.


Anybody with a brain in their head could see that the threat was not a serious one.

To treat the comment seriously enough to warrant jail time just lowers themselves to the same level of stupidity as the loser who said it.


I agree we should investigate all potential threats, and not waste time on the clearly false ones. I would accuse the investigators of wasting tax money on frivolous investigations.

What they should have done after receiving the tip and seeing the facts is to make a phone call and tell the kid not to say such things. Will most certainly scare the *#$^ out of him and not waste any more of the investigator's time than the situation called for.

Heck, it might clean up LoL a little for the players to know for a fact they are being watched.

True, there is a middle ground between what happened and people saying "it's stupid stuff on the internet, cops shouldn't have done anything".

I'd have had much more sympathy for the Police's reaction had the kid made a credible threat, such as "I'm going to shoot up School X", or, "I'm going to shoot up the school at the end of my street".
Saying you're going to shoot up a school and eat hearts is just a pathetic attempt at grand standing and one-up manship that should have been viewed in the wider context of two idiots trying to troll each other online.

I'm truly fortunate that not everything I, as a child, flippantly said out of anger has been recorded in a public venue. I think the same could be said for a lot of people.

Were that to be the case, I would expect we would see more ex-convict children than we do now. Sometimes, I wonder how that will haunt them as adults.

Yeah, this particular case was a non-event. At most, deserving of a phone call from the friendly local FBI agent.

I would also have called the canadian lady back and told her to not overreact over what was very clearly a donkey-cave being a donkey-cave.

 d-usa wrote:

If a dumb kid smokes weed, does he not face legal charges because he is a dumb kid?
If a dumb kid makes a thread, should he not face legal charges because he is a dumb kid?
If a dumb kid throws a rock at a car, should he not face legal charges because he is a dumb kid?

None of these equate any where remotely close to what the kid jokingly said online.

If the police didn't do anything and the kid would have hurt somebody then the exact same group of people on here would be complaining about how the cops won't do their jobs, won't enforce laws already on the books, etc etc etc...

Erm... no. There's really no way the police can stop something like that from a facebook post.

1) There's not enough man-power to police that

Funny, the fact that cops arrested him seems to suggest otherwise. Somebody was concerned enough to contact the police, the police acted on that complaint. They didn't respond to a random facebook post, they responed to an actual person complaining about the facebook post. This wasn't the police tapping into the NSA database to look for stupid kids posting stupid kids, so it's not a manpower issue.

And you don't see the issue here??? o.O

2) At worst, Facebook should've banned the kid from posting on Facebook. THAT'S the appropriate consequence. Not going to fething jail.

Facebook is not the police. You think the police should have ignored a complaint and told a private company to ban someone?

You're wrong there...

Facebook is NOT a public forum. They can and DO monitor their content.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, this particular case was a non-event. At most, deserving of a phone call from the friendly local FBI agent.

I would also have called the canadian lady back and told her to not overreact over what was very clearly a donkey-cave being a donkey-cave.

Exactly.

And the lady didn't complain to Facebook, she complained to the police.

So is the Police supposed to call Facebook and say "ban him"?

 d-usa wrote:
And the lady didn't complain to Facebook, she complained to the police.

So is the Police supposed to call Facebook and say "ban him"?

No.. the police should've determine, plain as day, that the kid was cheeky.

At most, they could've called the kid and told him to ease off.

I think a show to the kid's house and maybe a stern glare and talking to would have made this whole situation not happen.

I mean, there was a point that cops were portrayed as actual human beings, even to kids, and not as an ever-present faceless authoritarian figure.


...maybe I just grew up in too small of a town.

Yeah... this smacks to me as:

"Report all suspicious behavior to your local Gestapo office"

Oh my Godwin.

To think I was actually about to engage in this conversation.

Maybe someone should google the nosy woman who called the cops and maybe send the cops her way for harassment.lol JK

Gotta cover myself. you never know how this could be read.

Whew good thing he didn't aim his threat at POTUS.....

 whembly wrote:
Yeah... this smacks to me as:

"Report all suspicious behavior to your local Gestapo office"

I can see a report. What I don't get is that, he's still in jail right? That means 1) he's been charged with something serious; 2) and either no one's bailed him out, or its a big bail. There's more here than the report.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Yeah... this smacks to me as:

"Report all suspicious behavior to your local Gestapo office"

I can see a report. What I don't get is that, he's still in jail right? That means 1) he's been charged with something serious; 2) and either no one's bailed him out, or its a big bail. There's more here than the report.

He's facing charge of making terroristic threats.

Seriously, why haven't ya'll walled off Austin yet?

There's a petition to get him out.

That's all I see... do you see any info? I can't find the actual charges that were filed... aren't those public records?

OK he's been charged but where's the bail. Thats my point.

 Frazzled wrote:
OK he's been charged but where's the bail. Thats my point.

Was he given bail?

I guess the real question is, if you're charged with, do you even get bail?

Its extremely rare to not get bail. It may be high but unless you're a flight risk, er you can get bail.

Here is a somewhat similar case from the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-22839359

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is a somewhat similar case from the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-22839359

I'm not sure that they are too related. That person clearly wanted to cause fear. The teen in this case was just making a dark sarcastic comment.

 xole wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is a somewhat similar case from the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-22839359

I'm not sure that they are too related. That person clearly wanted to cause fear. The teen in this case was just making a dark sarcastic comment.

He also didn't put lol jk at the end

 purplefood wrote:

 xole wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is a somewhat similar case from the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-22839359

I'm not sure that they are too related. That person clearly wanted to cause fear. The teen in this case was just making a dark sarcastic comment.

He also didn't put lol jk at the end

It makes a world of difference.

 Frazzled wrote:
Its extremely rare to not get bail. It may be high but unless you're a flight risk, er you can get bail.

Maybe Terrorism threats don't get bail. Would make sense actually, in the case of an actual terrorist threat.

So the kid is now on suicide watch... this is so sad man..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uefb-s2LmXk

I'm feeling no remorse for him.....nope...none at all...

Updated OP

 xole wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 xole wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Here is a somewhat similar case from the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-22839359

I'm not sure that they are too related. That person clearly wanted to cause fear. The teen in this case was just making a dark sarcastic comment.

He also didn't put lol jk at the end

It makes a world of difference.

The two cases are similar in that they involve people arrested for making violent comments on social media. The difference is that the British man went to a lot of trouble to issue threats, whereas the American teenager made a couple of ill-judged remarks.

I don't think putting "lol jk" at the end of what may appear to be a threat makes it not a threat, however the teenager is being treated much more harshly than the British man for what seems to be a lesser offence -- I don't know why.

Some people might say it is because the UK reaction to incidents of this type is more "balanced" than the USA reaction .

Aaaand he's at least made bail now, thanks to an anonymous donor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USPOGgATLTU

Why the hell was bail at 500k?