Texas teen arrested, possibly facing eight years for sarcastic League of Legends comments

[#AR]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/texas-teen-jailed-after-league-of-legends-argument-6410871

 

A Texas teenager has been jailed since March 27 over comments he made on Facebook after playing a League of Legends match. In February, an argument 18-year-old Justin Carter had with another League of Legends player spilled onto Facebook, where Carter made a comment referencing a school shooting.

“Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,’" his father Jack Carter told Texas news station KVUE. "To which he replied '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,’ and the next two lines were lol and JK."

Jack Carter said a woman from Canada saw the posting, did a Google search for his addresses and when she noticed he lived near a school, called the police. Justin Carter was later arrested and charged with making a terrorist threat.

Justin Carter faces eight years in prison, his father said, arguing that his son's comments were sarcastic. “These people are serious. They really want my son to go away to jail for a sarcastic comment that he made," Jack Carter said.

Justin Carter's comments came just months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 children and six adults were killed. Jack Carter said his son did not pay much attention to current events.

“Justin was the kind of kid who didn't read the newspaper. 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," Jack Carter said. "They don't understand public space."

Family and friends have launched an online petition asking for Justin Carter's release and a rollback of certain anti-terrorism laws and investigatory practices.

 

Okay, in light of the previous situations that happened, what the kid said was a case of internet extremity, but seriously...

 

 

Some bitch all the way in Canada tracked down his fucking address and called the goddamn police on him?! WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT KINDA SHIT?! JESUS CHIRST. and TERRORISM CHARGES of all things...Really?!

 

So yeah...this is some fucked up shit.

Petition can be found here.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Carbo

[Badnik Mechanic]

Missleeding title is missleeding.

 

He hasn't been sentenced, he's been arrested pending an investigation by the police. At least thats the impression I get from the article. And its not that uncommon for this, here in the UK certain people who have posted similar stuff on twitter or even celebrities on telly can be arrested and then investigated if the comments are reported since any threats of violence or murder HAVE to be taken seriously by authorities.

[Chaos Incarnate]

This is fucked up. He really shouldn't have made a joke like that, but 8 years for being sarcastic? I can't believe he got tracked down for a comment like that. I knew someone a few years ago that made a school shooting threat, and he was rightfully expelled, but damn... this was taken far too seriously. Hopefully when this dies down, and charges are (hopefully) dropped, he'll have a nice talk with his parents on how not to offend people, and how saying stuff like that can get you arrested.

[Tornado]

He's lucky they didn't just drone strike his ass.

[Badnik Mechanic]

He's lucky they didn't just drone strike his ass.

 

It's League of Legends.

 

They'd send Orc's.

[RK64]

People say stupid things all the time and its really not a good idea to say REALLY stupid things like this kid said (who really says these things anyway?) but him going to jail over this, is just crazy.  I get why the police came, its important to have precautions and try to solve problems well before their started, but this is just a kid.  Its not like Combine where their was evidence in place to show that the kids REALLY were a bit off or anything like that, this was just some kind kid playing some games with his friend and just saying rash things in the heat of the moment.  I just hope he gets a fair trial and doesn't go to jail for saying something he didn't understand and/or not even mean.

[Emmett L. Brown]

Not gonna lie. That was incredibly stupid of that kid, and at 18 years he really should know better. It'd be right and proper for the police to give him a serious talking to about the foolishness of making even joking threats in an environment of extreme paranoia and excessive response for the sake of ineffectual "examples."

 

But criminal prosecution is just dumb. There was never any ambiguity about the threat being a joke. He specifically typed that it was a joke immediatelly after posting it. That freedom of speech doesn't exist is a fact people have to adjust to, but it gets out of hand when a stupid teen gets labelled a potential terrorist for typing a message on Facebook.

[Tani Coyote]

Comment is messed up but eh, it's the internet. People were saying Steve Jobs should be buried in a coffin that said "iDied" before his corpse was even cold.

 

As for the actual proceedings: while it technically is a terrorist threat, he deserves full legal procedures. It sounds like he's getting just that. They will presumably find no evidence he was actually planning anything of the sort, and release him. Hopefully he won't face any sort of social issues afterwards. This isn't touching on how obtuse the police are being for not clearly noting the joking context it was in, however.

 

The most worrying part of this is that someone tracked down his address. How did THAT work?

Edited June 28, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It's League of Legends.

 

They'd send Orc's.

There aren't any Orcs in League if you've played it.

 

Hopefully this'll teach the playerbase to stop being toxic as hell even more, but who the hell am I kidding? 8 years is still extreme as hell for sarcasm.

Edited June 28, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonîc

[RK64]

Comment is messed up but eh, it's the internet. People were saying Steve Jobs should be buried in a coffin that said "iDied" before his corpse was even cold.

 

As for the actual proceedings: while it technically is a terrorist threat, he deserves full legal procedures. It sounds like he's getting just that. They will presumably find no evidence he was actually planning anything of the sort, and release him. Hopefully he won't face any sort of social issues afterwards. This isn't touching on how obtuse the police are being for not clearly noting the joking context it was in, however.

 

The most worrying part of this is that someone tracked down his address. How did THAT work?

 

The government listens to our phone calls, have traffic cameras on major roads and can track our locations via GPS on our cell phones, you really think they can't find our address if they can do those other things?

[Emmett L. Brown]

If he posted on Facebook with his real name it would be trivially easy to find his adress online. Hell, I could pull that one off.

[Tani Coyote]

The government listens to our phone calls, have traffic cameras on major roads and can track our locations via GPS on our cell phones, you really think they can't find our address if they can do those other things?

 

This wasn't the government, though. This was a private individual, which is concerning.

 

Though what Emmett Brown said likely is the answer. You relinquish your privacy rights with every piece of personal information you share somewhere on the web.

[Frogging101]

The most worrying part of this is that someone tracked down his address. How did THAT work?

Simple, he was dumb enough to post his address on the Internet and associate it with his real name and/or online persona, and someone found it. I could put my home address in my SSMB profile and if someone looked my username up on Google, they'd get my SSMB page and they'd get my address. And that's why my home address is not in my SSMB profile.

 

The government listens to our phone calls, have traffic cameras on major roads and can track our locations via GPS on our cell phones, you really think they can't find our address if they can do those other things?

 

That's an overly simplstic idea of government surveillance; They can track metadata of calls (which is akin to reading the cover of an envelope, which is something the government has always been allowed to do), but they can't just listen to people's actual phone calls or open people's mail. Anyway, it's irrelevant in this case, because the government weren't the ones who found his address:

 

Jack Carter said a woman from Canada saw the posting, did a Google search for his addresses

 

He must have been pretty damn stupid, or at the very least unfamiliar with basic Internet safety, if some woman who read a Facebook post could find his address on fucking Google. 

Edited June 28, 2013 by Frogging101

[Carbo]

What the guy said was completely tasteless.

Of course if that's what passes as terrorist threats right now half of the entire internet population (me included) would probably be awaiting lethal injection. Texas just can't stop setting some awful precedence for that supposed first amendment or even proper civil rights. It's legitimately disturbing.

[iDEATH]

Missleeding title is missleeding.

 

He hasn't been sentenced, he's been arrested pending an investigation by the police. At least thats the impression I get from the article. And its not that uncommon for this, here in the UK certain people who have posted similar stuff on twitter or even celebrities on telly can be arrested and then investigated if the comments are reported since any threats of violence or murder HAVE to be taken seriously by authorities.

 

^This, the authorities have to take stuff like this as a serious threat.

It may be an obvious joke but you never k ow what could happen. Imagine if this person really did go and shoot up a school, newspapers the next day would read "Police knew of his threats and did nothing".

 

There's no way he'll get eight years in jail, though he may get a minor punishment. A couple of days in jail or something like that, to discourage others from doing the same thing.

 

But yeah, this stuff happens more than you'd think these days, remember those guys who got jailed for joking about starting a riot on facebook during the london riots?

[Carbo]

^This, the authorities have to take stuff like this as a serious threat.

It may be an obvious joke but you never k ow what could happen. Imagine if this person really did go and shoot up a school, newspapers the next day would read "Police knew of his threats and did nothing".

 

There's no way he'll get eight years in jail, though he may get a minor punishment. A couple of days in jail or something like that, to discourage others from doing the same thing.

 

But yeah, this stuff happens more than you'd think these days, remember those guys who got jailed for joking about starting a riot on facebook during the london riots?

This kid has already been sitting six months in jail. That's not a couple of days. It's horseshit, and hell if there is dirt holding him back why is it not being talked about?

Considering the state this is going down in I shouldn't be surprised.

[Tani Coyote]

Wait, just read that he's been in jail for several months already.

 

Yeahhhh this is pretty messed up. They have zero reason to hold him I take it? This is a blatant violation of American legal protections...

 

Then again it's Texas, a neocon hellhole that will allow anything in the name of security from enemies foreign and domestic.

 

For a party that throws the Constitution around a lot, the GOP's main strongholds sure are good at wiping their posteriors with it.

 

Sad fact is that if he hasn't been released already he probably won't. What really makes me gawk is that there are people who will justify his life being ruined because of one stupid comment. Really? Is this world that devoid of compassion and reason? And we wonder why such things as God and aliens don't show their faces.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice

[RK64]

Wait, this kid's been a jail for months already?!  I thought that he would have at least a trial and he didn't even do anything

 

Dam, this is just redicious; I hope he gets out soon and the government their would just ease up a little

[PSI Wind]

Wait, this kid's been a jail for months already?!  I thought that he would have at least a trial and he didn't even do anything

 

Dam, this is just redicious; I hope he gets out soon and the government their would just ease up a little

Texas is beyond repair in terms of the government. I swear.

[Tornado]

Is he actually being held on state charges, or federal ones? Terrorist charges usually (though not always) fall under the latter.

[iDEATH]

This kid has already been sitting six months in jail. That's not a couple of days. It's horseshit, and hell if there is dirt holding him back why is it not being talked about?

Considering the state this is going down in I shouldn't be surprised.

 

Ah, that's quite different, That's what I get for reading the quote instead of the actual article *shame*

 

I laughed at his comment, probably due to my disturbed, dark sense of humour. Anyway, sure, it was a stupid thing to say, and he really should have known better, considering the state things are in now. But Jesus fucking Christ, who the hell tracks someone down over THAT? Even if it is an easy job, any person in their right mind should know that that was a sarcastic remark. I really have to wonder what was going through her head at the time, most people would make use of common sense and consider what they're doing. I know that they've gotta take this seriously, but like Carbo said, people saying stuff like this isn't exactly uncommon now, is it? 

 

I'll say what I said before. This sort of thing is only an "obvious joke" as long as it doesn't come to anything. It's easy for us to say it's stupid with hindsight but at the time it's quite a different matter.

This could have been a genuine threat and the authorities were right to treat it as such. They can't simply assume such things are a joke. That's their job.

Again, can you imagine the shit that would have gone down if it turned out this guy did go and shoot up a school and the police had known of this post and done nothing because they "thought it was just a joke?"

 

What's happened afterwards, that's a different story.

[Tani Coyote]

You have likely said "I'm going to kill you" to countless people throughout your life. If the police treated that as a legitimate threat on the basis of the word alone, our justice system would fall apart.

 

This is why the police need probable cause. Jailing a person for a short span of time to ward off a possible threat is generally fully legal. However, they cannot hold you if they have nothing against you. If you said you were going to kill someone and they temporarily jail you, did they find any evidence, such as a firearm, prior criminal history, detailed plans of such, etc.? No? Then keeping you would be unjust and illegal.

 

And that is the case here. He made a threat, the police rightly interned him for it... and then they presented no evidence to keep him there barring stirring up some typical terrorist nonsense. He should have been released a day or two after his arrest since they had nothing to prove it was beyond just a remark. It's amazing how magically Americans forget the entire legal process as soon as you throw "national security" and the like around.

Edited June 29, 2013 by Ogilvie Maurice

[Badnik Zero]

It's just an immature comment. I mean me and coworkers joke about workplace shootings sometimes. It's just kinda ridiculous when the actual shooters leave messages with people and no one is alerted, and other people with no serious intent are arrested and held. Well I hope they find out he has no weapons, and no plans, then maybe he'll get some kinda probation.

[Tani Coyote]

It's just an immature comment. I mean me and coworkers joke about workplace shootings sometimes. It's just kinda ridiculous when the actual shooters leave messages with people and no one is alerted, and other people with no serious intent are arrested and held. Well I hope they find out he has no weapons, and no plans, then maybe he'll get some kinda probation.

Sadly I don't think he will. It's been several months... clearly the Texas police forces aren't exactly strict on their evidence requirements.

Then again it's Texas, so one doesn't really expect progressive legal standards from them.

[KHCast]

Will this seems a little extreme and plain bullshit honestly. Who in their right mind would-*Texas*

 

Oooooooh.....Texas sometimes....ugh. I mean like Ogilvie said, Legally this might be in purgatory for awhile. But wow! They are making this a much bigger deal than it needs to be. It's sad honestly. Not to mention not actually finding evidence to support their claim, and just throwing him in from saying something. By their logic, half of the internet(or even more) should be held for "potential terrorism." Ugh...