Terrorist threatening?
 

http://www.lex18.com/global/story.as...Type=Printable


An 18 year old high school student in the US state of Kentucky has been arrested for "terrorist threatening", & faces a second degree felony charge.


His alleged crime?


Writing a fictional short story about a high school being over run by zombies.


:rolleyes:

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Anyone seen the two Michael Moore films - Bowling for Columbine and 9/11?

This is exactly the stupid, paranoid atmosphere of fear that idiots like Bush create.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

To be fair though, his grandparents found it and were so disturbed they turned it over to the police. Surely if it sounded so innocent, wouldn't they have dismissed it?

The only reason this was taken seriously is because of Columbine. For months (and years?) they wrote things like this in their diaries - but everyone was accused of not caring and under-estimating, when people found out that some had read what they wrote, those kinds of things, and dismissed them.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

With grandparents like that I think I would ask to be taken into care...

IF,IF, I went searching through my son's diary in the first place and found something like that my first reaction would not be to call the police...I would at least talk to him about it.. :rolleyes:

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Quote:
"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing,"
said Poole.

Oh what a lovely pair of totally thick and stupid grandparents.
This is the kind of fallout you get when a government creates a state of fear amongst the gullible majority in order to further its dubious policies.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

The fear everyone goes on about is supposedly directed at muslims, is it not? This isn't about fear, it is about apathy and it coming back to bite you when you ignore signs that someone could seriously do some wrong.

All that Trenchcoat Mafia stuff, AFAIK never mentioned any names or places, which is why noone did anything.

Incog: The police shouldn't be the first place to take it, logically, the psyciatrist would be, but how do you know the grandparents didn't try and get the kid help? If the kid refused to go, then the police would be the next thing to do.

Also, if memory serves, Columbine was in 1998, 3 years before Bush took office, and if memory serves me again, in the year or so after columbine kids complained that parents were too eager in reporting them, because of coumbine. The seeds were sown long before Bush came along.

Still it is fruitless discussing it as noone knows what was said (apart from the kid himself, and I wouldn't call that impartial). Besides, even if the grandparents were so consumed by fear, the police wouldn't be.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Wasn't it just a fictional story? There's no indication the boy needed help.

Granted a psyciatrist should have been considered first.

How can you be prosecuted for writing a story? I thought free publications was an american "right"

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Why blame Bush? And why say it's stupid, unless you know a lot more detail? It's easy to say it was a short story about a school being overrun by zombies, but you could also say that Romeo and Juliet was a play about a boy and a girl in love. There may well be more to it than has been outlined.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Well, that's what he says but as we will never hear the other side, its hard to say.

Its all about that saying... "with rights comes responsibility" I could say to you that i'll rip your eyes out. Even if I was joking, and never intended to carry it through, it is still a threat, and it is still ABH.

The 1st amendment doesn't give people the right to defame character, incite hatred, plagurize, or threaten.

There's something that just doesn't seem right here. How can 2 grandparents AND the police force be exaggerating and "paranoid"? If it was one or the other, maybe... but both?

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Does anyone know the kids personality and past behaviour?
Perhaps he has a long history of torturing animals and a penchant for wearing black and sharpening knives a lot.........

...............does seem a bit of an overreaction though :disturbd:

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Oh ye gods! What next, episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (how many times did Sunnydale High get attacked by supernatural beings?!) being deemed illegal...???

:banghead:
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It depends.

There's no other information, but what if his grandparents were "concerned Christians" of the type who think that D&D and Heavy Metal lead to Devil Worship and simply over-reacted?

But *how many* young teens write stuff like that? Yet somehow 99.999% of them manage not to go on to commit Columbine style massacres, so to assume that just because this guy wrote that story he was going to go on do such a thing would be like (oh, I'm sorry, I just *can't* resist this! :) ) assuming that all Muslims are potential terrorists...
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ABH? I think not.

AIUI you could, possibly, be charged with Affray, if the other person actually considered that you were going to carry out the action, but ABH requires, well, *actual* bodily harm!

The Police are bound to act by the laws prevailing.

The problem is that, once such an accusation is made, they are *forced* to follow it up, no matter what, they can't simply brush it off or say to the grandparents "don't be silly".

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

And the police are as well I suppose?

Precisely my point. What he said he did was normal, and natural. So why did his grandparents AND police get so worked up about it? The police would have better things to do than riciculous arrests and charges that won't go anywhere. And over there things work a bit differently in the charging system. In cases where evidence is shaky, they have to go to the District Attorney for the area to debate wether they have a case, and the DA would say to proceed or drop it, whereas here the guy would get charged and the CPS (or DPP now?) decides wether the case has merit.


Well I know so. http://www.wardle61.fsnet.co.uk/nfoap.pdf

I.E. threating to kill someone without touching them constitutes ABH. Pyschological harm, such as fear for your life, does consitite actual bodily harm. Anyway, I thought affray had to consitiute an actual fight, and it had to be in public, else it would just be assault?



So you are now saying he did break the law?

"Following it up" does not include charging a suspect. The police must always have some clear evidence to charge someone with a crime. And the police would be well within their rights to say don't be silly to the grandparents unless they are the named threat, and supposedly noone was named in the stories. It doesn't add up. There is something else to which we are not being told.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

No, see below.

Fair enough, as mentioned elsewhere, I'm not a lawyer.

No, but as I already said:

Please don't pick nits with my phraseology.

As far as I am aware, if someone in the USA is accused of a felony offence, the procedure is pre-set and cannot be varied.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

But there's a world of difference here. The kids at Columbine could get hold of guns. Now, I`ll admit I don`t know all the details in this case, but I'm pretty much willing to bet any body part you name that this kid isn`t a necromancer.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Isn't a necromancer like a spiritual-styled medium? Do you mean he is talking to the Columbine kids? What did you mean by that?

And this kid could still get guns if he wanted to, regardless of where he lived. And before people turn this into a gun control debate, if I went to Tottenham and waved a bit of money round, i'd be able to get a gun too.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

A necromancer raises the spirits, or in some definitions the bodies of well, of the dead. If the authorities are considering a "zombie" attack as a threat it would imply that they also think this kid has some means of raising the dead from their graves.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Arn't there loads of stories based on Zombies? Are they going to arrest the people who wrote them aswell for so called "terroist threatening"? :erm:

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Could also be a metaphor. Perhaps there is evidence that when he said zombie, meant apathetic pupils. We have no idea what was said so we can only speculate what was said.

But between the police AND grandparents who were so conerned about it. and the kid, I know who I am most inclined to believe.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Metaphor my arse. Besides, if you are apathetic it isn`t normally conducive to conducting an armed attack. I've never heard terrorists to be described as "apathetic", if they were I`m sure they'd be a lot less trouble.

This is simply a case of over-zealous authorities and grandparents without a clue. I used to write horror stories for my GCSE English work. I`m sure some of those would have given my grandparents quite a shock. It doesn`t mean they were qualified to comment upon them though.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Perhaps he said something along the lines of "Soon the zombies will rise again and re-take the school by force", in this case zombie being the kid's apathetic group.

Like you said, you did it and didn't get arrested. Plenty of people in the US write horror, and don't get arrested. Why would his grandparents AND the police pick on this one kid, and one kid alone? If it was on or the other, I could say they might be overzealous, but both? There is something more to this we aren't being told about.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

Perhaps you'd care to make up some details for us then, as you are certainly reading between the lines and spotting points that I do not feel are justified. We all know what the US is like at the moment. You ask why they would pick on this one kid. I think there you are making the mistake of assuming that they can logically justify their actions, past history has demonstrated that the US authorities consider this to be an unnecessary luxury.

Re: Terrorist threatening?
 

I am doing nothing of the sort. I am merely proposing another view here in which the kid could be guilty. Unlike some I don't use hatred of the US as a crutch to support any one or story that accuses them of some nefarious deed. The kid may be guilty, or he may be innocent, but everyone in this thread so far has automatically declared this kid an innocent victim. All I am saying is: "hold on, it might not be like that..".

I suppose Stephen King has gone on the lam then? I am going to be extradited to the US for comments in one of my previous posts?

At the end of the day, it is going to court, and a jury will decide wether this case has merit or not, so the police and his grandparents will have nothing to do with it.