4 ms·

I think anyone agrees that this whole situation has been blown out of proportion on a massive scale. But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recen

I think anyone agrees that this whole situation has been blown out of proportion on a massive scale. But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? What if he actually DID shoot up a school, and afterwards people discovered that authorities WERE warned? People need to realize that what you post on the internet can be interpreted different than what you actually meant. Besides, threatening with an act of terrorism is never funny, and always a bad idea. My El Al (Israeli airline) flight was delayed once because some prankster thought it was funny to say 'I have a bomb' to the flight attendant while boarding. He was thrown in jail and had to pay for delaying the flight. In this case, the punishment doesn't fit the crime. I do wish people would think twice before making threats as a joke, though.

jpttsn 13y ago
> Besides, threatening with an act of terrorism is never funny, and always a bad idea. That's a little narrow-minded. I can easily imagine scenarios where it's funny and/or a fairly good idea.
- dirktheman 13y ago
  I stand corrected. Achmed the dead terrorist was hilarious!
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Anything can be funny. If you want a perfect example (regarding rape, something widely held to be not funny) look up the George Carlin rape bit. It doesn't matter what the subject is. Anything can be funny.
    - dirktheman 13y ago
      That made me laugh, proving your right. As with all jokes, timing is key, though!
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
MojoJolo 13y ago
I agree with you. But I think we don't know the whole context of the thread. Let's give him a benefit of the doubt. The thread topic which we don't know is really important in this case. My creative mind is thinking, what if the topic is like this... "What is the worst thing you imagine that you can't ever do?" And then he replied that way. Also, I don't get it why didn't manage to see the whole thread? I guess it is sort of publicly available and can be accessed without even contacting the Facebook authorities.
zacinbusiness 13y ago
The problem is that it's not a crime to be an idiot. A lonely teenager who's already angsty gets into a flame war with an internet troll. That happens every day. And much worse things are said between people. What happened here is a dumb kid was dumb, and either the troll or some busy-body made the call to the cops. And, more importantly, an over-achieving DA with aspirations of being a district court judge thought this case could make her career - "Stopped a terrorist threat" would be a great line in her website, and she will get a whole bunch of publicity down in not-shit-ever-really-happensville Texas. Meaning she will be able to use this to campaign on later if she prevails. None of this is about the idiot kid. It's all about political ambition and cops doing what they do best - terrorize the weak and the innocent.
- spacemanmatt 13y ago
  There's also a judge who deserves a heaping portion of blame for abject failure to hold the cops to any reasonable standard of 4th amendment rigor. What probably happened is they got a bunch of classified information from the FBI and hastily constructed a very poor "parallel construction" which they are now seeing fall apart.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  Actually it is often a crime to be an idiot, and it's quite appropriate. For example, in OP's case of the delayed El Al flight, yes it's a crime to declare to someone who might reasonably believe you that you're bringing a bomb on board. And so yeah, also, only months after Newtown and Aurora to declare that you're going to shoot up a school can be a crime -- although 8-10 years is beyond all proportion and reasonableness. But, especially if you have a history of expressing suicidal and other violent sentiments online, that's a quite reasonable thing for someone to think.
  - zacinbusiness 13y ago
    I'd agree that his timing was a bit off, and he didn't land his punchline. But being a failed comedian and telling off-color jokes is, luckily, not a crime. Look at all of those dead baby jokes. So yeah, making a joke about a bomb or something might ruffle some feathers. But how many terrorists tell a plane full of people that they have a bomb BEFORE the people actually get on the plane? None of them. Because that's a stupid thing to do.
venomsnake 13y ago
I agree that every threat should be taken seriously, but there should be sane and quality judgement in the authorities to quickly dismiss false positives. People will behave goofy. You cannot put the burden on them.
alan_cx 13y ago
"But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? " Yes, absolutely, really. If you are in playground type ranting slanging match, you go of the most extreme things to say, which could cause shock in the recipient. Right now, things like school shootings are the current shock fodder, and well in peoples minds. So people will use that subject. Same with pedophiles and terrorists. And of course, many strands of comedy also use this. There is nothing whatsoever strange about this.
- dirktheman 13y ago
  I'd say it depends on the occasion. For instance, when Louis C.K. says something similar while performing a comedy show, it's absolutely clear that he's not actually going to shoot up a school. It's meant to shock his audience. When you're posting these things on the internet to people you probably don't even know in person (so they have no way to know wether you're joking or not), things can get hairy quickly. I'm sure the person he made the threats to knew he was joking, and thought it would be a good troll to report him to the authorities. Bad taste aside, when you're not 100% certain your 'threat' won't be perceived as such, please don't write them down.
  - fragsworth 13y ago
    No, it does not depend on the occasion. It depends only whether or not there seemed to be an actual intent to do something terrible. Teenagers say stupid shit all the time, sometimes just to see if they can out-shock or out-weird their friends. Especially online. The context of the conversation matters.
    - mcv 13y ago
      > Teenagers say stupid shit all the time And sometimes they do stupid shit. Some simple advice: don't shoot people, and don't threaten to shoot people. Threats can be very serious, and shouldn't be thrown about so casually.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    You are part of the problem.
benjaminwootton 13y ago
+1. I'm as liberal as they come, but the guy deserves the weight of the law to come down on him like a ton of bricks for even hinting at considering to shoot kids in a school.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > but the guy deserves the weight of the law to come down on him like a ton of bricks for even hinting at considering to shoot kids in a school. They never found any evidence that he even said it. FB didn't give them access to his account. A screenshot is easily faked.
- vidarh 13y ago
  So you're in fact not as liberal as they come. With a view like that you're pretty far from being liberal at all by my account. Personally, I'd consider a place where you could be convicted for making statements like the ones he did a police state. I say this as a father of a young boy who is at school right now. I find the very sentiment that this kid deserves the weight of the law to come down on him outright disgusting. Was it right to investigate? Yes. They might have found someone with a stockpile of weapons getting ready to shoot up the local school or kindergarten - they didn't know the kid or the context of the statements. But the situation should have changed rapidly once they had searched his home and found nothing, had found nothing else to indicate he was going to actually shoot up a school, and found no evidence of actual planning or specific threats. Have him see a psychologist, maybe. That's about it.
benched 13y ago
Rappers have collectively made countless graphic threats against people of all walks and ages, to an audience of tens of millions. It's part of the art-form. Eminem and Nicki Minaj have made explicit threats of gun violence that refer to schools. And they're jokes. For some reason they haven't been arrested for it. Context, maybe. First amendment, maybe. What if one of them does something? Then their lyrics will be dredged and repeated on the news ad nauseam. "How did we not see it coming?" Humans are anxious monkeys. "Oh shit, words! What if there are intentions? What would we have done if he hadn't said words to let us know of his thoughts?"
darkarmani 13y ago
> But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? What if he actually DID shoot up a school, and afterwards people discovered that authorities WERE warned? I'm not sure why this part matters. The prosecutor might be fired, but at least an innocent boy is not raped while waiting for trial? The boy had no means to carry out the threat -- they searched his home. Your scenario works fine for Minority Report, but not in real life.

jpttsn 13y ago

> Besides, threatening with an act of terrorism is never funny, and always a bad idea. That's a little narrow-minded. I can easily imagine scenarios where it's funny and/or a fairly good idea.

dirktheman 13y ago
I stand corrected. Achmed the dead terrorist was hilarious!
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Anything can be funny. If you want a perfect example (regarding rape, something widely held to be not funny) look up the George Carlin rape bit. It doesn't matter what the subject is. Anything can be funny.
  - dirktheman 13y ago
    That made me laugh, proving your right. As with all jokes, timing is key, though!
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

MojoJolo 13y ago

I agree with you. But I think we don't know the whole context of the thread. Let's give him a benefit of the doubt. The thread topic which we don't know is really important in this case. My creative mind is thinking, what if the topic is like this... "What is the worst thing you imagine that you can't ever do?" And then he replied that way. Also, I don't get it why didn't manage to see the whole thread? I guess it is sort of publicly available and can be accessed without even contacting the Facebook authorities.

zacinbusiness 13y ago

The problem is that it's not a crime to be an idiot. A lonely teenager who's already angsty gets into a flame war with an internet troll. That happens every day. And much worse things are said between people. What happened here is a dumb kid was dumb, and either the troll or some busy-body made the call to the cops. And, more importantly, an over-achieving DA with aspirations of being a district court judge thought this case could make her career - "Stopped a terrorist threat" would be a great line in her website, and she will get a whole bunch of publicity down in not-shit-ever-really-happensville Texas. Meaning she will be able to use this to campaign on later if she prevails. None of this is about the idiot kid. It's all about political ambition and cops doing what they do best - terrorize the weak and the innocent.

spacemanmatt 13y ago
There's also a judge who deserves a heaping portion of blame for abject failure to hold the cops to any reasonable standard of 4th amendment rigor. What probably happened is they got a bunch of classified information from the FBI and hastily constructed a very poor "parallel construction" which they are now seeing fall apart.
jessedhillon 13y ago
Actually it is often a crime to be an idiot, and it's quite appropriate. For example, in OP's case of the delayed El Al flight, yes it's a crime to declare to someone who might reasonably believe you that you're bringing a bomb on board. And so yeah, also, only months after Newtown and Aurora to declare that you're going to shoot up a school can be a crime -- although 8-10 years is beyond all proportion and reasonableness. But, especially if you have a history of expressing suicidal and other violent sentiments online, that's a quite reasonable thing for someone to think.
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  I'd agree that his timing was a bit off, and he didn't land his punchline. But being a failed comedian and telling off-color jokes is, luckily, not a crime. Look at all of those dead baby jokes. So yeah, making a joke about a bomb or something might ruffle some feathers. But how many terrorists tell a plane full of people that they have a bomb BEFORE the people actually get on the plane? None of them. Because that's a stupid thing to do.

venomsnake 13y ago

I agree that every threat should be taken seriously, but there should be sane and quality judgement in the authorities to quickly dismiss false positives. People will behave goofy. You cannot put the burden on them.

alan_cx 13y ago

"But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? " Yes, absolutely, really. If you are in playground type ranting slanging match, you go of the most extreme things to say, which could cause shock in the recipient. Right now, things like school shootings are the current shock fodder, and well in peoples minds. So people will use that subject. Same with pedophiles and terrorists. And of course, many strands of comedy also use this. There is nothing whatsoever strange about this.

dirktheman 13y ago
I'd say it depends on the occasion. For instance, when Louis C.K. says something similar while performing a comedy show, it's absolutely clear that he's not actually going to shoot up a school. It's meant to shock his audience. When you're posting these things on the internet to people you probably don't even know in person (so they have no way to know wether you're joking or not), things can get hairy quickly. I'm sure the person he made the threats to knew he was joking, and thought it would be a good troll to report him to the authorities. Bad taste aside, when you're not 100% certain your 'threat' won't be perceived as such, please don't write them down.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  No, it does not depend on the occasion. It depends only whether or not there seemed to be an actual intent to do something terrible. Teenagers say stupid shit all the time, sometimes just to see if they can out-shock or out-weird their friends. Especially online. The context of the conversation matters.
  - mcv 13y ago
    > Teenagers say stupid shit all the time And sometimes they do stupid shit. Some simple advice: don't shoot people, and don't threaten to shoot people. Threats can be very serious, and shouldn't be thrown about so casually.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  You are part of the problem.

benjaminwootton 13y ago

+1. I'm as liberal as they come, but the guy deserves the weight of the law to come down on him like a ton of bricks for even hinting at considering to shoot kids in a school.

darkarmani 13y ago
> but the guy deserves the weight of the law to come down on him like a ton of bricks for even hinting at considering to shoot kids in a school. They never found any evidence that he even said it. FB didn't give them access to his account. A screenshot is easily faked.
vidarh 13y ago
So you're in fact not as liberal as they come. With a view like that you're pretty far from being liberal at all by my account. Personally, I'd consider a place where you could be convicted for making statements like the ones he did a police state. I say this as a father of a young boy who is at school right now. I find the very sentiment that this kid deserves the weight of the law to come down on him outright disgusting. Was it right to investigate? Yes. They might have found someone with a stockpile of weapons getting ready to shoot up the local school or kindergarten - they didn't know the kid or the context of the statements. But the situation should have changed rapidly once they had searched his home and found nothing, had found nothing else to indicate he was going to actually shoot up a school, and found no evidence of actual planning or specific threats. Have him see a psychologist, maybe. That's about it.

benched 13y ago

Rappers have collectively made countless graphic threats against people of all walks and ages, to an audience of tens of millions. It's part of the art-form. Eminem and Nicki Minaj have made explicit threats of gun violence that refer to schools. And they're jokes. For some reason they haven't been arrested for it. Context, maybe. First amendment, maybe. What if one of them does something? Then their lyrics will be dredged and repeated on the news ad nauseam. "How did we not see it coming?" Humans are anxious monkeys. "Oh shit, words! What if there are intentions? What would we have done if he hadn't said words to let us know of his thoughts?"

darkarmani 13y ago

> But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? What if he actually DID shoot up a school, and afterwards people discovered that authorities WERE warned? I'm not sure why this part matters. The prosecutor might be fired, but at least an innocent boy is not raped while waiting for trial? The boy had no means to carry out the threat -- they searched his home. Your scenario works fine for Minority Report, but not in real life.