Another High School Student Arrested

[Andy Chalk]

Another High School Student Arrested

A 17-year-old student at Northport High School in Washington who claims he was developing ideas for an FPS-style videogame has been arrested for plotting to kill dozens of his classmates.

The student, Lance Timmering, says he was explaining his ideas for his own FPS when he was overheard by two teacher's aides. A notebook containing his plan to shoot students was brought to the attention of the school principal, and both school authorities and local police felt Timmering presented a credible threat.

Timmering's father, Terry Timmering, says if police are going to arrest his son, they also need to arrest everyone else designing an FPS game. "These games are on the internet now, people are making big money," his father said. "Are we going to throw all of those people in jail?

"We think it's politically driven, with what happened at Virginia Tech. Columbine was just five years ago, we have a new prosecutor in town, we think it's politically driven," he said.

The case follows closely behind a very similar situation in Fort Bend, Texas [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/71360-High-School-Student-Suspended-For-Making-Counter-Strike-Map], in which a 17-year-old student was expelled from his high school and barred from graduation for creating a Counter-strike map based on his school. School officials in both cases claimed that every potential threat must be taken seriously.

Northport High School maintains it had no way of knowing whether Timmering's writing was creative expression, or an actual plan to commit mass murder. The student is currently out on bail, awaiting a court's decision on his fate.


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[Pottsy]

Teachers can be suprisingly paranoid.

It reminds me of when I was at secondary school (Scottish equivilent of High School) One of my classmates asked if I could hack and I, obviously joking, replied yes. The teacher overheard me and told all the other teachers that I was hacking into the school computer systems. From then on they kept a close eye on me. They even thought I was the one leaking information about the frequently updated passwords to access the internet. The person leaking the passwords was one the teachers who couldn't be bothered typing the password into the computers whenever someone needed internet access. It wouldn't have been hard to guess anyway, they were always named after cakes.

 

[Russ Pitts]

The cultural divide between teachers and students has typically created these kinds of scenarios. When I was in school (before columbine) it was heavy metal music and satanism. Any hint that we were fans of heavy metal was taken by the teachers as proof we worshiped Satan, and we were therefore chastened or, in extreme cases, punished. That we often took to surreptitiously writing satanic slogans on our learning materials (and occasionally the teachers' desk) probably didn't help, but, similar to the Digg revolters, we had a childish streak, and enjoyed tweaking authority. This did not usually end well.

 

[Chris Chasteen [deprecated]]

More disturbing than the divide between teachers and students, is the wholesale belief that videogames mods (perfectly innocous in thier own right) are seen as a threat. I would have loved if someone had modified the original Wolf 3D so I could have played the game using my High School as a map--and I am a complete pascifist.

What is more damaging about these types of incidents is that it further thrusts doubt and fear into the minds of a population ill-equiped to look critically at the situation. Instead of looking at the situation (and background of the students--the Texas kid was honor roll), people immediately assume that becuase Eric and Dylan were avid gamers that all kids modding games with real-world type scenarios are walking time-bombs.

So the question remains, what caused people to go on kill-sprees before video games? What was the *cause* (read scapegoat) for mass-murders before video games *desensitized* our youth to violence and trained (even suggested to them) to go to school and open fire?

Instead of blaming the parents, the system, or the killers themselves, as a nation we have turned to blaming a form of entertainment. Instead of accepting that there are people with mental issues that we just don't understand, we must look for something to blame...and you know what? It ain't gonna be ourselves!!!

Games didn't cause Columbine or V-Tech, Dylan and Eric caused Columbine and Cho caused V-Tech. Why can't we call a horse a horse?

Chris

 

[TomBeraha]

Games didn't cause Columbine or V-Tech, Dylan and Eric caused Columbine and Cho caused V-Tech. Why can't we call a horse a horse?

Because it's easier to point the finger than to self-examine. Nobody likes to be in the wrong, and admitting that you had even the slightest part in something like Columbine or V-Tech is not easy.

The real issue here is responsibility. People refuse to take responsibility for their own lives, much less the actions they've taken that could have affected someone like Cho, Dylan or Eric. We immediately refuse responsibility for where we are in the world, both the good things and the bad things. Everyone in the world is where they are now because of the choices they made along the way. Most people live paralyzed by fear because they didn't consciously weigh out and make the decisions that got them where they are. For these people who refuse responsibility with phrases like "I don't deserve him/her", "I got lucky" the easiest escape is through either drug usage so they don't even know they're making a choice, or through scapegoating others for the things they feel are wrong with their life. The number of people who can comfortably say "I messed up, but it was a good thing, because I learned from it" and apply that to their relationships with their loved ones and friends, their performance at their jobs, or their financial situation are few and far between.

I dare say most people are far more comfortable arguing they are where they are because of who their parents were, what their upbringing was like, who had it out for them at school. People who place causes on their own actions deny their own ability to think. This willful ignorance is the underlying cause to all the hysterical pronouncements of blame on the game industry, the comic books kids read, the satanic rock kids liked, and every new thing that comes out that someone doesn't "get" and therefor fears. Fear is the biggest motivator here, and it's a shame that so many people live paralyzed by it, reacting to the headlines of the day without thinking for themselves.

 

[Russ Pitts]

I think you're right, Tom, but I'd add that sometimes there just isn't an easy answer, or even an answer at all. Sometimes people are just rotten, and there's no cause for it, and no cure.

And as I said in this piece [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/70988-The-Devil-in-Ms-Pac-Man], that's what's most terrifying. Sometimes we cling to an answer or blame, even in the face of evidence that it makes no sense whatsoever, simply because we'd prefer not to think about the fact that bad things happen with no reason. If that's true, it could happen anywhere, at any time. And that's just too horrible to contemplate.

 

[Bongo Bill]

A thought that crossed my mind, thinking back on all the incidents like this, was "And responses like this are supposed to quell anti-authority behavior?"

 

[Andy Chalk]

I bet none of you guys ever spent weeks explaining that you actually weren't involved with a satanic cult, or defending yourself against outright accusations of the same. Fun stuff, good times. This was during the peak of the "heavy metal will kill you" phase, an idea so fringe and patently ridiculous that even while I was balls-deep in it, it was never entirely without a certain amusement value. (I suppose it's fair to say that reasons pretty much identical to Russ' may also have been a factor.)

What I find distressful is that virtually identical situations, focused on a new boogeyman and fast-forwarded to today, are no longer just a time-wasting pain in the ass that maybe earns a student a particular reputation of one sort or another; in the here-and-now, it can earn you suspension, expulsion, social ostracism, and in the worst-case, possibly even jail time. We are beginning to live in a society where we actually have to be careful about what we say - and think about this, because it's tremendously important - we have to be careful about what we say. And now, students are being arrested for designing Counter-strike maps and (apparently) kicking around FPS designs. We should be worried.

 

[shadowbird]

On the topic of responsibility - it's never a single-sided answer. Always blaming everyone else for what happens to you is just as bad as always blaming yourself ("If only I had not walked down that street that night, I wouldn't have been robeed", etc.). Where you go in life depends on both your choices and actions, AND those of others. Saying that "some people are just rotten, no matter the circumstances" is like saying "some pancaces are tasty, no matter the ingredients". At the same time, saying that "video games turn people bad" is like saying "without sugar any pancake will turn out flat, burned, disgusting and un-edible". Either way you're dismising pretty much all of the many different ingredients and cooking process of the pancace, and focusing on either one ingredient or the result only.

 

[TomBeraha]

On the topic of responsibility - it's never a single-sided answer. Always blaming everyone else for what happens to you is just as bad as always blaming yourself ("If only I had not walked down that street that night, I wouldn't have been robeed", etc.). Where you go in life depends on both your choices and actions, AND those of others. Saying that "some people are just rotten, no matter the circumstances" is like saying "some pancaces are tasty, no matter the ingredients". At the same time, saying that "video games turn people bad" is like saying "without sugar any pancake will turn out flat, burned, disgusting and un-edible". Either way you're dismising pretty much all of the many different ingredients and cooking process of the pancace, and focusing on either one ingredient or the result only.

I don't mean to suggest that your own actions are the only factor in your current situation, just that yours are the only one that matter, as they are the ones you had control over. If I had been smart enough to not walk down a dark alley at night, alone, making myself a good target in a poorly lit area for robbing, instead of aimlessly wandering I might not have been robbed. No I don't say we should blame the victim, but we should never absolve them of their part either. Even in extreme cases like rape we can find this sort of choice, the outcomes of your actions are never ever clear, and I'm not saying that blame should be administered at all, just responsibility taken. A girl who goes out every night and drinks so much she can't even stand, let alone make good decisions is still RESPONSIBLE for the situation she put herself in. Does this mean I blame her for being raped? NO. But that doesn't mean she couldn't have avoided it.

As to "being careful about what we say", you're absolutely right Malygris, it is a terrifying thing. It shows that at the least, the American people are refusing to take responsibility for the actions they made that let McCarthyism happen. Instead we are choosing to blame a single bad entity in our collective memories. The real danger we have in not examining our past choices through the lens of what resulted is that the road to hell CAN be paved with good intentions. When we have no choice but to act- we already made choices that put us in that situation, and we need to examine those and determine why we made them, and whether we want to make them again.

However, I think it's also nothing new. For some reason - Be it a darwinian impulse to try new things, even if they're old things, humans as a whole refuse to consider consequences to their actions, and refuse to learn from the mistakes of others. We've committed these crimes as a race since history was being written. I doubt this is anything more than the continuation of that cycle. Making the results "real" for the people in power long enough to change until people who don't care what happened 50, 80, 300, 1000, 2000, etc. years ago are in power and able to do the same thing we always have.

 

[Russ Pitts]

I think it would be a fun exercise for everyone in this discussion to go back and read Orwell's 1984 again, just for kicks. Because we are, in effect, living that vision. "Be vigilant!"

 

[Bongo Bill]

Children in public schools never had rights, at least not in the sense that adults are accustomed to. Free speech and all. This is the way it's been. Changing it will be a new and largely unprecedented policy, and I'm not sure the political environment is right for it. At present, at least, the two main factions are the ones who're up in arms about anything remotely threatening coming out of a school, and the ones who'd be up in arms about children thinking outside the dogmatic doctrine that's been set up for them. The fact of the matter is that any time (such as the present) that a majority of adults are worried about children being shot or children thinking un-PC thoughts, you're not gonna find widespread support of a movement to stop this madness.

Of course, and this isn't really related, a person should always be careful what they say - just never on Uncle Sam's behalf. Speaking without thinking is the downfall of many people who could otherwise have been great. The difference in a free society is that it's a lot harder to go to prison for it.

 

[Chris Chasteen [deprecated]]

Children in public schools never had rights, at least not in the sense that adults are accustomed to. Free speech and all. This is the way it's been. Changing it will be a new and largely unprecedented policy, and I'm not sure the political environment is right for it.

Great point, and one I find it difficult to reconcile and raises a number of questions in my mind.

Let's assume the law is applied as I understood it as teen-age trouble maker. This means that, within our society, until a child reaches the age of 18, parents are legally responsible for thier childrens' actions.

Additionally, it is my understanding that as citizens we are allowed rights--rights are not a product of existence--and these rights can be taken away--jail, prison, the death penalty.

So this begs the question at what age are we afforded our rights as citizens? At birth we are given the right to protection (foster homes, state homes, etc) At 18 we are allowed the right to legally represent ourselves--this is, in effect, why we can move out, we are control our own legal decisions at this point--in exchange we must be available to die for our country in the event it needs us. At 21 we gain the right to drink alcohol.

After that, I cannot think of any more rights granted us.

So...what about kids and schools...

What rights do we grant children in schools? The right to an education? It seems not, or inner-city schools would be just as effective as others--this right is not provided for by our government.

What rights to childres have in public (outside of school)? I can think of none! They are allowed to wander, play, etc, but these are not rights afforded to children. They have no legal recourse if they are prevented from doing these actions.

What about at home? Again, they have no rights at home, only allowances--despite what parents may claim.

At what age does the consequences of a child's actions no longer belong thier parents? The answer is simply 18!

But all of this has nothing to do with kids and games--of course it does!

Take the example of the kid in Texas. His parents defend his right to develop and play his mod of the game. As soon as he gets to school, a different set of people revoke that right and contradict his rights as granted by his parents? Who is right?

We tell kids they have the right to do this or that, but until they are 18, there is no document set of rights afforded to children as there is for adults (called the law)--it is all defered to the parents, but that seems to be changing as elected officials seem to be determining what is right and wrong and taking this out of the hands of parents (assuming there are parents).

Okay, I ranted...this is touchy topic that gets me going! I was the type of student all through grade school that played with and challenged ideas of what 'rights' students had!

Oh yeah, and kudoz for following my stream of consciousness type writing.

Chris

 

[TomBeraha]

Additionally, it is my understanding that as citizens we are allowed rights--rights are not a product of existence--and these rights can be taken away--jail, prison, the death penalty.

Do we not hold these rights to be self-evident? Though you make a good point about our practical application of it. Granted this applies only to US readers, but still a counterpoint. I can't connect the two except in my head - but I'm reminded that the difference between a law and a rule, is that you can break a rule. You can't remove gravity, or the laws of thermodynamics or aerodynamics. You have to obey the law. rules instead are a approximation of these things, generally understood as "can't" when it really means "shouldn't or else".

 

[Bongo Bill]

The philosophical writings forming the basis of the Constitution (as well as the verbiage of the Bill of Rights itself) suggests that rights are an inherent property of human existence. Locke, Jefferson, and Madison did not seem to mention anything about those unfit to exercise those rights that I know of. Precedent suggests that the protection of rights may be revoked as a punitive measure (that is, incarceration), or when the rights being protected are being exercised without a sound mind capable of reason directing them (that is, animals, the insane, and presumably children).

Now that movements are underway to protect the rights of animals as well, and even the rights of convicts are protected Constitutionally in the seventh amendment, even though the protection afforded their rights is diminished, it is still enumerated. I think that the problem isn't so much that a teenager doesn't have rights, but that nobody seems to know just what a teenager's rights are.

 

[sharp_as_a_cork]

Anyone care to speculate why these things only seem to occur in the US?

 

[Bongo Bill]

Either they only happen here, or they only get press attention here. Obviously, there's a world of difference between the two.

 

[Echolocating]

In Canada, there is an overall fear of and respect towards firearms. I just don't see this cautious attitude in the US with respect to gun legislation. I think that speaks volumes on the issue.

 

[Joe]

What rights do we grant children in schools?

Very few. The Supreme Court affirmed kids at the very least don't have the right to free expression in school [http://www.anarchytv.com/speech/hazel.htm]. There's also truancy laws and stuff.

What rights to childres have in public (outside of school)? I can think of none! They are allowed to wander, play, etc, but these are not rights afforded to children. They have no legal recourse if they are prevented from doing these actions.

What about at home? Again, they have no rights at home, only allowances--despite what parents may claim.

The Children's Bill of Rights [http://www.newciv.org/ncn/cbor.html] isn't legally binding, but it's still a pretty good guideline for parents.

Take the example of the kid in Texas. His parents defend his right to develop and play his mod of the game. As soon as he gets to school, a different set of people revoke that right and contradict his rights as granted by his parents? Who is right?

Both parties. It's a case of private clashing with public. What the kid does in the privacy of his home, if it's approved by his parents, is fine. Taking the mod to school exposes it to outside review. However, the problem is he didn't take the mod to school. He was just talking about it with a friend, which means the school was punishing him for his thoughts, something typically protected universally by the First Amendment, though since he was in school, it wasn't. And that's a problem a new Supreme Court will have to deal with, hopefully.

Anyone care to speculate why these things only seem to occur in the US?

If you're talking about gun violence, it's not unique to the U.S., but I saw Bowling for Columbine, too, and I don't know why it's so bad here, other than the fact our bad guys shoot at each other, rather than stab each other.

If you're talking about hysteria, it's mostly ignorance and myopia.

Also, fun statistics!
Murders, per capita, by country [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita]. Statistically speaking, you're four times as likely to be murdered in the U.S. than in the U.K. or Canada. But since most murders are committed by people you know, I figure our higher population means we know or interact with more people on average.
Crimes committed, per capita, by country [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita]. We're all in about the same boat here, though this stat is a bit wiggly. First, high crime rates are usually symbolic of people trusting the police enough to report them. Second, I'd wager the U.S.'s numbers are a bit inflated due to the War on Drugs. Yay.

Overall, I'd say a lot of it comes out in the wash. Given how tightly packed cities in the U.S. are, and the large gap between rich and poor (this one is our fault), there's going to be areas where violent crime and murder are more prevalent. But really, the difference between four and one per 100,000 is small enough for me to feel safe walking around at night.

 

[Arbre]

While I'd say the reactions, in a broad range of cases such as those presented in the OP, are quite extreme and embarassing, I still wish there'd be more prevention, or attention.
Not the AR kind of prevention displayed above, but a bit less isolation and denial.

I don't know, but maybe if some people had actually paid attention to some details regarding Columbine's drama - and apparently those "details" were literally abunding rgarding Klebold's and Harris' activities - the drama might have been avoided.

It's possible that for 100 kids penning FPS premises and sketching FPS maps, 1 of them might be actually taking it beyond the virtual border.

I can't totally blame those teachers either.
Even if we see them as being literally baffled by nowadays technologies, lazily pointing fingers at the video games, being afraid of them as they don't seem to fully understand what's happening around them, maybe faster than they can absorb, their concerns, though badly (over)expressed, are actually respectable.
At least, we should listen to them.

So maybe we should actually have those people, teachers and co, come here and let's hear about their vision of this, because the problem is that most of the time, those who react to that kind of news, just like here, in places dedicated to structurated thoughts about video gaming, are often pro-game people.

Like or not, it's a bit biased.

In the end, it's all unfortunate. Me and a schoolmate were two inches away from mapping the whole building for Quake III, and god knows how this game was quite violent in its own ways, and you just don't know the amount of stuff I've been penning during class.
But I can't remember, in that vast amount of gory drawings and wild ideas that filled my agendas (and there were many), that any of them even remotely approached anything close as killing dozens of my classmates.

So we don't know the full story about Timmering.

What's sad for the guy is that his reputation could very well be ruined for the years to come, just because the authorities overreacted, instead of taking it privately, intimately, with the parents, and discussing about this calmly.
They've likely been alarmists, more than anything else.



On another note, in another thread, I supposed that we just had to wait for another mass media to become the favorite cheap target of the same authorities and politically correct think groups.
But we have a problem.

Books have themes and words.
Music have themes, lyrics and visuals to some extent (artworks, the imagery of group members doing *things*, etc.).
Films have themes, sounds, dialogues, dynamic and highly realistic visuals.
Video games have all of this, and you actually take the responsabilities of the acts commited in them. These acts can be atrocious, gratuitous and violent.

So unless another type of media burgeons and hacks all of this into one, and adds another layer of responsability or way to deliver a message, we're stuck with video games being the fluo painted scapegoat for a few more decades.

Now, with all those technologies which tend to fuse body functions to machines, and electro signals to brainwaves, I can't wait for the day where a VR game will actually directly kill someone.
:|

On the point of the danger of mods, I think that's worth an entire other debate. IIRC, Gamasutra had an article on that, a couple of months ago.