Absurd Terrorist Threat charges

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Story taken from Lex 18.

Seems a bit strange that someone can be arrseted for simply writing a short story. How he came to be charged would also be interesting to know. Did a teacher report the story to the police? Are the references to zombies not fictional enough? Sounds like Winchester lives in the days when people actually believed in ghosts, dragons and zombies.

Is writing proof of intent? What type of punishment could this guy recieve if he is found guilty of these 'terrorist threats'?

 

Thats just wrong, you cant arrest someone for just writing about something like that.

I guess the guy is pretty pissed of about his grandparents reading his journal and turning him in, but what 18 year old boy/man keeps a journal?

 

It sounds to me like his grandparents were hoping to get him out of the house. The story makes it sound as if they were snooping around his room when they stumbled on his writing and called the cops. I'm reminded of that lady who sued two teens for knocking on her door with cookies after 10pm...

I'd assume that the prosecution will lean on the stories as being thinly disguised letters outlining his future intent to go on a killing spree. If it is indeed a felony to write negative things about public institutions in Kentucky, the lads in deep water. If convicted as a felony, I can see him being incarcerated for anywhere from 1 year to 10. You've gotta love the American justice system.

 

Most felonies in the U.S. carry far harsher prison sentences than 1 to 10 years. However, this is a second degree felony, which is a lesser type of felony, so maybe that is true.

What I think will happen though is that the guy is going to get placed on probation, if anything at all. If the story is truly as innocuous as he claims, and is a story of zombies taking over a high school, then there's no way he will be convicted, not even in backwater Kentucky.

I think the fact that's it's a felony to make any threat towards a school or a school-related function is ultimately moot, because the school in question is ficticious, and does not actually exist in Kentucky, or anywhere else for that matter.

 

Unless William Poole is a necromancer, I don't think that Kentucky has to fear being plagued with zombies!

It sounds like they are making a big deal about nothing.

 

A young English teacher living in Maine wrote a similiar story, while on summer break. In his story, a young student at a high school attacks the other students and destroyes the school at the end of the story. At the end of the summer he thinks it's a waste of time and throws it into the trash. But his wife who has been reading the story, fishes it out of the trash and sends it to a publisher. It turns out that the English teacher has a real talent for writing, which the editors recognize. At least this is how the story was related to me by a literary agent in New York.

The English teacher is, of course Stephen King, and the book is "Carrie." It makes one wonder what would have happened if it was the police who would have fished the manuscript out of his trash today. But King started back in the days when civil liberties actually meant something in America. But along with civil liberties, intellectual freedom is under attack in America as well. Those in power use terms like "values" and "social integrity." But what they really mean is conformity, which is the opposite of intellectual freedom.

 

Edit: This story doesn't have anything to do with a 9/11 style terrorist threat -- this is about Columbine High School style terrorist attack.

I believe I heard those two little terrorists at Columbine had written many things -- if someone would have said something the killings would not have happened. Fortunately those two thugs were morons and couldn't get their bombs correctly assembled; otherwise, there would have been hundreds of deaths.

I've had three nephews and a niece graduate from Columbine -- one was in the cafeteria when the gunfire started. I have no problems with the police moving in so quickly, and I'm not one to immediately believe the young man's statements. If he really wrote about zombies, then he shouldn't have a problem. But if he wrote detailed plans of how to kill as many people as possible in his high school...well, he'd better hope for a kind and gentle roomie (not likely though).

 

I'm guessing that his defence will focus more on how the material was discovered, and if writings in a private journal constitute a "threat". If I can be charged for something I wrote in privacy with no intention of it ever being seen, then we are moving into a very scary area, where "bad thoughts" may indeed be punishable by law.

 

Got any credible source on this? Because this "Lex 18" is entertainment news, "Who cares about the truth? We got to leave the accusing facts out of this and make this story SHOCKING!!"

I can't decide if it's a lame punishment because of this. What is Poole's background and where is the text of the story?

[ March 01, 2005, 20:12: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

What a crock of ****. Next we'll hear about somebody getting arrested for talking bad about the government. Well, let me put in my 2 cents. Bush is an idiot. His policies are going to destroy America. I really hate what is happening to this country. People suck, especially the people in power. Ok FBI, come and get me. No? Well I guess people still have some freedoms here. Hope it remains that way, at least till I leave. God Bless America. Huh.

 

Welcome to post-Columbine America where bad thoughts, if written down as a plan-of-attack on your fellow students and teachers, CAN be used against you. Another Columbine may happen, but the law enforcement community will do everything in it's power to prevent the slaughter of children.

 

Wow, I guess Ravynn was just...uhhh...ravin'.
Good sarcasm though.

Edit: ... and not even from a blue state....

 

I was making a point. Quote: Next we'll hear about somebody getting arrested for talking bad about the government.

Heh, T2- I like to think of myself as an enlightened and relatively intelligent individual, which means, judging by the results of the last two elections, and what I see in the great majority of the population, that I am in the minority in this country, certainly in this state full of sheep molesting rednecks.

[ March 02, 2005, 04:37: Message edited by: Ravynn ]

 

What I find strange enough is that his grandparents read the journals of an 18 year old - that is - a grownup - and top it even by going to the police to turn him in. A healthy inter-family relationship, huh?

I find the climate in the family as remarkable as the hysterical reaction of law enforcement on it.

And that's how I see it: Since 911 a good deal of America, hysterical and paranoid, is on the proverbial 'bad trip'.

I fear a second massive terror attack would lead America even further down the path of curtailment of civil liberties. If you look at the draconian reaction on this non-issue, you hardly wonder what makes the beacon of liberty detain without trial and torture in Gitmo and attack countries for imaginary threats.

And that makes this line ring so very much true: You have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Because fear in the people, and amplified by the government, is the greatest threat to civil liberties in the US.

Take away the fear and the Patriot act or the paranoid doctrine of pre-emption would make no sense anymore and would be rejected as nonsense, by the U.S. too.

 

Ragusa: The police in America have been like this since the Columbine High School attack. It has nothing to do with 911.

 

This is very very scary. America has gone way to far.


Again.

 

Paranoia has been taken to new extremes. As they say, "only in America...".