$500,000 Donation Frees Jailed League of Legends Player

[Jaer44]

This guy gets stuck in prison for making a (very stupid, incredibly tasteless) joke yet you have people like the westboro baptist church walking around spouting their bull shit all over the place. The British law system has many probelms but damn we have nothing on the USA.

Actually the UK has the Harassment Act of 97, which is so broad, it's been used a few hundred times to prosecute and convict people, ranging from general harassment (stalking) to facebook posts. One man actually was stopped and questioned for a quick comment on facebook on how he was going to go to a local fish market and kill, of course it was reported nearly instantly and he was stopped. He was talking about the lobsters he was picking up.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

"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."

The first time I saw this story it was reported he ended the 'threat' with "LoL JK." Was that incorrect?

He did. People have just been carelessly omitting it.

Even without that addition, the whole thing is just dripping with sarcasm. Who else thinks the investigator for this case should be fired on grounds of incompetency?

I'm no scientist, but I find it's always jackass District Attorneys trying to move up in the District Attorney world who wind up prosecuting stuff like this.

Perhaps. But someone looked at this and made the judgement call, "Looks like teh terror to me, let's arrest his ass." That person is either incompetent or malicious, either way they should not be in the position to be able to do this.

Personally I would've arrested him too. Terrorism isn't something to dismiss so readily. But locking him up in a police cell while they searched his room/house and analysed exactly what he said, as well as an interrogation would have sufficed.

And he would have learned a good lesson out of it too.

There's a difference between "come down to the station so we can do a quick search and ask you some questions" and an actual arrest, throwing him in a cell with actual criminals.

And what lesson is that? "Don't say anything ever?" I believe that's a terrible lesson.

Like I said, terrorism is serious. You don't "ask" a potential terrorist to "come down to the station".

If someone told you they were gonna shoot up a school full of children would you ask them to go down to the station and turn themselves in?

And the lesson is; don't say dumb shit.

That's not what I said. It's not calling you and asking you to drive over there, its showing up at your doorstep and saying "We need to ask you some questions, come with us." Holding someone in a police station is very different from holding them in prison.

By the way, since when did we as a society start placing Columbine and 9/11 in the same category? "Terrorist" has just become a broad label used to incite justification for extreme measures at this point.

Who said anything about "calling" someone and asking them?

I also said myself that he should have been kept in a police cell too. Go back and look if you don't believe me.

All I'm saying is that an arrest was a good call in my opinion. Nothing "incompetent" or "malicious" about arresting someone who is said to be a potential terrorist. Bear in mind that these police acted on the words of the Canadian women who reported it, who most likely forgot to mention the fact that he said "lol jk" afterwards.

 

[Hazy]

I said it during the Brian Banks [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AftFzhOOMcI] case and I will say it again: our justice system is fucked and it sorely needs to change.

The kid should have been released the second nothing came up during the search of his home. Absolutely fucking absurd. What he did was stupid, but this is the equivalent of killing an ant with a flamethrower.

"There's two different Justice systems in this country. You think one of the top bankers is going to have his kid sit in jail for 5 months? It's inconceivable. The prosecutor would be scared for his career! But if you're poor, sorry, your bail is set at 500,000 bucks."

-The Young Turks​

 

[Woodsey]

Although somehow I never did say I was going to kill anyone, or rape their mother, or beat them like a n*****, its almost like I never thought the internet gave me an excuse to stop acting like a functioning human being and turn into a howling neanderthal.

Did he say he was going to beat someone like a ****** or rape their mother?

That exact sarcasm, in such close proximity to horrible events, said on a publicly viewable website most likely is.

And I suppose you're out in the streets calling for every comedian who's made a 9/11 joke to be thrown in jail for a decade.

 

[major_chaos]

Did he say he was going to beat someone like a ****** or rape their mother?

No, I was just going down the list of generic internet tough guy shit the kiddies spew.

And I suppose you're out in the streets calling for every comedian who's made a 9/11 joke to be thrown in jail for a decade.

Only if they are actively saying the think it was awesome and want to try it themselves, otherwise they are just lazy shock jocks.

 

[Jaer44]

while you have the 1st amendment, there *are* consequences for what you say.

Those consequences do not/should not directly include governmental action and imprisonment. Like screaming "fire" in a building, the issue is not punishment for saying that word, the issue is accountability of the resulting panic and injuries that result from said panic. That's what we as a society should be focusing on. Responsibility for how people react.

Which in this case is people feeling uncomfortable. First Amendment covers that.

As I said, the First amendment has actual sections where specific speech is unprotected, one of them is "threat", in several cases, they were dismissed because it was not an "true threat", while others (much like the case I mentioned) was considered enough to be a threat. Speech that is a direct threat to a body of people or person can be unprotected by the 1st amendment.

In the end, it'll be the grand jury/Judge to decide whether it's a true threat or not.

 

[DragonStorm247]

"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."

The first time I saw this story it was reported he ended the 'threat' with "LoL JK." Was that incorrect?

He did. People have just been carelessly omitting it.

Even without that addition, the whole thing is just dripping with sarcasm. Who else thinks the investigator for this case should be fired on grounds of incompetency?

I'm no scientist, but I find it's always jackass District Attorneys trying to move up in the District Attorney world who wind up prosecuting stuff like this.

Perhaps. But someone looked at this and made the judgement call, "Looks like teh terror to me, let's arrest his ass." That person is either incompetent or malicious, either way they should not be in the position to be able to do this.

Personally I would've arrested him too. Terrorism isn't something to dismiss so readily. But locking him up in a police cell while they searched his room/house and analysed exactly what he said, as well as an interrogation would have sufficed.

And he would have learned a good lesson out of it too.

There's a difference between "come down to the station so we can do a quick search and ask you some questions" and an actual arrest, throwing him in a cell with actual criminals.

And what lesson is that? "Don't say anything ever?" I believe that's a terrible lesson.

Like I said, terrorism is serious. You don't "ask" a potential terrorist to "come down to the station".

If someone told you they were gonna shoot up a school full of children would you ask them to go down to the station and turn themselves in?

And the lesson is; don't say dumb shit.

That's not what I said. It's not calling you and asking you to drive over there, its showing up at your doorstep and saying "We need to ask you some questions, come with us." Holding someone in a police station is very different from holding them in prison.

By the way, since when did we as a society start placing Columbine and 9/11 in the same category? "Terrorist" has just become a broad label used to incite justification for extreme measures at this point.

Who said anything about "calling" someone and asking them?

I also said myself that he should have been kept in a police cell too. Go back and look if you don't believe me.

All I'm saying is that an arrest was a good call in my opinion. Nothing "incompetent" or "malicious" about arresting someone who is said to be a potential terrorist. Bear in mind that these police acted on the words of the Canadian women who reported it, who most likely forgot to mention the fact that he said "lol jk" afterwards.

For holding him at the station for a day of investigation as you described, you would be right. Extreme, but arguably rational.

However, when you say "arrest" bear in mind that is a different thing entirely. Arrest is what they actually did; take him to prison and lock him away to await trial. When I speak of incompetence, I refer to this. What they should have done was look him up, look over the comments and the conversation, maybe hold him in the station for a day and search his house, and then let him go when they find no evidence. An investigator who goes into this, sees the circumstances and lack of evidence, and still thinks its an actual threat that necessitates long term incarceration, is frankly a sh*tty investigator.

 

[Woodsey]

Did he say he was going to beat someone like a ****** or rape their mother?

No, I was just going down the list of generic internet tough guy shit the kiddies spew.

And I suppose you're out in the streets calling for every comedian who's made a 9/11 joke to be thrown in jail for a decade.

Only if they are actively saying the think it was awesome and want to try it themselves, otherwise they are just lazy shock jocks.

It was a joke, man. You think it was a bad joke? Sure, why not. It's a dumb thing you say to a friend. Who gives a fucking shit? People make jokes that run afoul all the time, and I don't doubt that every holier-than-thou pretending this guy has committed some heinous crime worthy of any sort of legal repercussion - especially a prison sentence - isn't entirely full of shit in claiming they've never said something distasteful, which could only be worsened 100-fold when taken out of context.

I mean really: if you don't want people shooting up schools, maybe stop with the stupid, overblown demonization of young teenagers.

Not to mention the fact that people do such a thing in the hopes of media attention - and fuck me, all this guy had to do was joke about shooting up a school. (And eating their hearts, which he was of course deadly serious about.)

 

[Negatempest]

-He said something really REALLY stupid.
-He is an adult, thus I do not pity him.
-Jail time? No. But a psychiatrist would go a long way.
-Why I do not pity him? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting To me this was far worse than any terrorist attack that we know of so far. So his "joke" went beyond tasteless.

 

[Whytewulf]

First, do I think what he did was probably meant as a joke, yes. However, Terrorist threats against schools, is not something to joke about, especially in a public forum. Let's say this guy was about to snap.. (it's happened) and the police did nothing, you'd be all over them. There are so many "can't win either way situations", like the TSA and flight protection. I don't know all the facts, nor do I really want to, other than a few articles. Needless to say, it's out legal system that's made this even bigger. I actually believe the arrest and search was warranted. The 5 months and $500K, no.. I hope he does get off with time served, which I suspect he will. Or even better found not guilty, but he unfortunately DID say those things.

This isn't a first amendment thing, you can't say anything you want. As someone else mentioned, FIRE in a movie theatre, threats against the president, etc. There is too much insane trash talk these days anyway, the internet is not a place you can expect to say anything and hide, people try, some succeed, but use your head.. Once it's posted, it's there forever! like this.. NO!!!!!

 

[Amir Kondori]

Are you sure it was $500,000 and not the $50,000 required by the surety bond?

 

[RaikuFA]

The simple fact is, people wanted to make money. Yes, someone clearly overreacted to report this, but then the system said, hey we can make some money here. Every head in the prison system is more money in people's pockets somewhere, that's why people are imprisoned for bull crap, why innocent people are so easily found guilty, and why rich jerks get out of the crap they are in when they have committed an actual crime.

Yeah he got bail, someone got paid, and they'll get paid more in the continuing case and if they convict him they'll get even more.

It costs the state more to investigate, charge and prosecute this boy than it ever would have if they'd just let it drop. District Attorneys don't care, they get paid either way. It's only the taxpayers' money after all.

The growth of privately owned prisons are making money off of every head in their prison. Government is thinking they are saving money by giving the prisons to privately owned corporations, however, the corporations are running them like business models. Worse, judges have admitted to sending kids to juvenile detention for minor offenses because they would get paid money return. Who's to say that can't happen on the larger scale of full, adult prison. I bet if someone would actual, really investigate the people trying to put this kid in jail, they'll probably find all kinds of kickbacks and bribes and money going around, besides the district attorney's greed.

I remember hearing about this. One judge who apparently did it the most was sentenced to 80 years last month. I think the kickback money is being used to compensate the people who were wrongfully jailed(at least I hope so.)

 

[Amir Kondori]

I don't approve of what he said, and he should have been punished for it, but just by a mod or someone giving him a warning or a ban. How did society get to the point where making a bad dark joke costs jailtime and half a million dollars?

Terrorism bro. Listen, things like the constitution were all well and good before terrorism, but now terrorism. So we just have to trust our elected leaders and police agencies to the right thing and make whatever decisions they think are best. That is just the world we live in. The constitution just doesn't apply anymore. The sooner everyone learns this the better.

 

[sneakypenguin]

I say this every time but this pisses me off so bad. Ruin a kids life for a comment that is clearly not serious.
Its not even worth looking into beyond checking the comments prior and after if even that.

Its borderline criminal that we would do this to somebody. To sound like a loon if that was my son or brother who was tossed in jail i'd raise hell. If he's convicted then the temptation (if iwas his family)to resort to violence would be so great and even justified imo. It would be immoral on the governments part to do this,breaking that tacit agreement to at least respect the individuals rights. Hopefully this gets tossed somehow.

If i was on the jury i'd get a contempt charge so fast. We the jury find the defendant innocent of all charges and the DA and associated parties guilty of being a fucking dumbass.

If this is the standard they are going to hold then may i direct them to youtube.com wherein they will find an endless supply of cases to prosecute.

He might be guilty under some bizarre interpretation of the law but then again we are all felons under those kind of standard

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Why? Just.. why? You know Mr. good Samaritan $500,000 can do a lot of things, buy you a new TV, feed the poor, make a giant fire if you get it all in singles, hell just roll it up and smoke that shit just to show how rich you are, anything is a more noble cause than getting this braindead little shit out of jail.

As people have already said, it is basically making a statement.

I certainly don't want my country to be a place where you can go to jail without a proper trial for five months, just because you make a tasteless joke.

After some things that have happened to my brother recently in my state, along with seeing this case, the US Legal system needs an overhaul.

I found out that in my state (Indiana), a person can be arrested, brought to trial(a jury trial too), based on hearsay, no witnesses, and zero physical evidence.

That is what my brother is going through right now. Falsely accused, with the possibility of going to prison being innocent, and he has already lost the best paying job/career he has ever had, because the employer doesn't want to be associated with him if he is sent to prison. Also, it is bankrupting our father trying to pay his court costs.

Basically, in my state, a person can point a finger at you for something, with no proof, no evidence, and no witnesses, and ruin your life.

 

[major_chaos]

Sure, why not. It's a dumb thing you say to a friend.

Wasn't the woman who reported this not someone they even knew? If you are going to say stupid shit, don't say it in public, same concept as "don't yell bomb in an airport".

People make jokes that run afoul all the time, and I don't doubt that every holier-than-thou pretending this guy has committed some heinous crime worthy of any sort of legal repercussion - especially a prison sentence - isn't entirely full of shit in claiming they've never said something distasteful, which could only be worsened 100-fold when taken out of context.

Difference is that a. I never make "mock" threats because its hard to say who will take them seriously, and b. If I'm going to say something offensive I'm not going to do it on a public forum, I'm going to say it in face to face conversation with people I'm sure won't misinterpret what I'm saying.

I mean really: if you don't want people shooting up schools, maybe stop with the stupid, overblown demonization of young teenagers.

I was a teenager not that long ago, its hard to overstate how stupid and awful a lot of people at that age are.

Not to mention the fact that people do such a thing in the hopes of media attention - and fuck me, all this guy had to do was joke about shooting up a school.

Now this I agree with. The celebrity we give to school shooters is absolutely awful and counterproductive.

 

[DragonStorm247]

while you have the 1st amendment, there *are* consequences for what you say.

Those consequences do not/should not directly include governmental action and imprisonment. Like screaming "fire" in a building, the issue is not punishment for saying that word, the issue is accountability of the resulting panic and injuries that result from said panic. That's what we as a society should be focusing on. Responsibility for how people react.

Which in this case is people feeling uncomfortable. First Amendment covers that.

As I said, the First amendment has actual sections where specific speech is unprotected, one of them is "threat", in several cases, they were dismissed because it was not an "true threat", while others (much like the case I mentioned) was considered enough to be a threat. Speech that is a direct threat to a body of people or person can be unprotected by the 1st amendment.

In the end, it'll be the grand jury/Judge to decide whether it's a true threat or not.

I'm not questioning the content of the First Amendment, I'm questioning its rationale. If you view human rights as derived from logic (which I do), then you will find that these rights are given to us by a piece of paper in the Constitution, they are ours by natural definition. So when I criticize government action, I do so on the basis of rational morality.

Nowhere in the Constitution itself does it actually say this this and that are unprotected. What you are citing is long standing precedent based on court interpretation. What I am saying is we need to reevaluate that interpretation.