Petition to Free Jailed League of Legends Player Reaches 100,000 Sigs

[Colt47]

He's going to get out of jail. This is just ridiculous on so many levels that it isn't even funny.

 

[Something Amyss]

This is a very complicated case for me. He without a doubt, did something incredibly stupid but... does he really deserve eight years in jail for it? Hell after that school shooting in Newtown or whatever that school was called, some kid from a neighboring school said he could do better on facebook and was arrested. He got away with a slap on a wrist from the judge and was expelled from his school. That should be this guys punishment. Give him some community service or something because this kid will be most likely murdered in prison.

What he did is not right and he deserves to be punished, but eight years in jail is to extreme.

Yeah, but the kid lived in CT. This one lives in Texas, where they shoot you for jaywalking.

....But seriously, the kid did something stupid, and deserves to learn words have consequence, but yeah. 8 years in jail is just stupid. 8 months in jail would be stupid.

Community service might actually be on the nose.

 

[Andy Chalk]

He's going to get out of jail. This is just ridiculous on so many levels that it isn't even funny.

Hopefully, yes, but he's spent five months on the inside, been assaulted multiple times and has been in solitary confinement for an unknown amount of time. That's not something you just shake off and forget. The only question at this point is how damaged he's going to be when he comes out the other side.

And suggesting that he should be punished for not exercising common sense on the internet? I'd be fine with an account ban (although given the prevalence of stupid shit-talk on the internet I think even that would be harsh) but I have no desire to live in a "be careful what you say" society.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

This is fucking disgusting, I seriously hope this kid sues for millions and sees all whose responsible for this lose their jobs.

 

[Vausch]

So much for freedom of speech if you can be arrested for sarcasm... Way to go US...

While I agree that the prison time is wildly excessive, he should've had the common sense not to say something that stupid on Facebook where you really have no idea who's likely to read it.

"Oh yeah, 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" doesn't sound like someone being sarcastic so much as someone trying to be shocking.

You don't have freedom of speech on Facebook, you have what they allow you to say. Even so, I think 100 hours of community service picking up trash or something would have made a lot more sense.

See that's the problem with text. You can't distinguish sarcasm, so when a person goes "lol JK", they are likely being sarcastic.

This wouldn't hold up in any court for any reason. Hell, if you went on Xbox Live and fished through all the comments including the phrases "I will rape u" or something, odds are you'd have a few million more kids in jail.

This is bullshit, plain and simple.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Knowing Texas, it's a good thing he is white, or else they'd give him the chair!

 

[Callate]

Good Lord. What a ridiculous waste of public resources. I'd understand if they investigated, heck, I'd understand if they even held him a few days to be clear that such a comment wasn't okay. But trying to charge him as a terrorist? Especially in the light of the lack of evidence that he's anything of the sort, and the long delay before the investigation (suggesting law enforcement also never took the comment all that seriously?) And a plea bargain of 8 years?! What kind of message are they trying to send? Aside from maybe "Yeah, that run-for-profit penal system is working out great"?

 

[J Tyran]

I dont think he needed an 8 year sentence, but he did need something for that completely dumbass comment. you cant just say jk or lol after something like that in the recent events of newtown and the boston bombing and think thats alright.

A Facebook ban is the only thing he should really have been subjected to.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Not that his humour is worth applauding, but come on. Eight years? The amount of bullshit involved here is beyond belief.

 

[fletch_talon]

You have to use a sense of judgement in situations, for example as you brought up work, say a worker is just having a crummy day and says off offhandedly "wow I'd really love to just jump out that window". Do you jump up and pin them to the ground and call the authorities for an attempted suicide? No, you use your better judgement and realize that it's dark humor.

You can judge things based on context, true. Problem is when you say something in a public place you risk people who are not involved taking it out of context. Facebook comments are not necessarily public, you can choose who sees them, this kid evidentally didn't do that. He put a comment up which people who were not aware of the context could see. As such they've done the right thing and expressed their concern to the authorities.
Also the fact that this was an online comment changes things too. Sarcasm and humour generally can be detected by tone of voice, such things can't be noticed in an online setting. A coworker telling me about his shitty day and joking about hanging himself or whatever may not be a concern. A coworker typing about how shitty his life is finishing his comment saying he's going to commit suicide can be a concern. Again, maybe not to the person who he's talking to, who presumedly knows his sense of humour, but quite possibly to the supervisor who he forgot he had on his friend list.

The correct analogy would be if someone called in a bomb threat and said the bombs are inside your kidneys or someone else said they had a gun which fires solid bullets of blood pumped from his very veins. I would hope that you do not report me and have me arrested as both a criminal and a blood mage.

I don't think you know how analogies work if you think that's in any way more correct.
The still beating heart eating (sounds cooler this way) is possible, unlikely, but possible nonetheless. But if you want to be more realistic, its also possible for a real threat to be made using hyperbole for effect.
Basically what he said is something you can take to be a real threat in spite of its over-the-top imagery.

Your anologies on the other hand, are stupid and illogical, bordering on the impossible. Having said all that, if you said something like that to me without context for doing so (especially if it was in a call to my workplace or especially in person) then yeah, I'd have you arrested or at the very least institutionalised.

Also by threating to shoot up a school and eat the still beating hearts of children is not something to acceptable joke about where anyone can see or hear. If you want to joke about it with your friends, don't got posting it on Facebook.

Spot on.
In a group of friends where the context is understood, talk about whatever you want. If there's a chance people will overhear without the oppurtunity for you to explain the context, then watch what you say.

I do still think that imprisonment is too drastic for making an example of someone. As I said earlier, fine him (or his parents) for the costs involved. Any more prison time than he's already experienced through his arrest and awaiting trial is going to do more harm than good.

 

[ninjaRiv]

America can arrest people for making jokes that aren't funny? And Dane Cooke walks free?!? Oh, America...

Surely having his account suspended and a lesson on what's funny and appropriate would do.

 

[RJ 17]

After several weeks in prison, the court determined that the county in which he was being held didn't have jurisdiction, but instead of being freed he was transferred to a different county, where the judge doubled his bail.

Well ain't that a *****.

On the one hand, I do enjoy seeing someone pay for a stupid jackass comment, on the other hand this is frickin' ridiculous. I can't believe they arrested him after turning up absolutely no evidence that these so-called "threats" were genuine, and now the guy is in prison due to his poor taste in humor.

*clicks the link to sign the petition*

 

[ninjaRiv]

Actually, I wonder if there's been any reaction from the person who reported him. I doubt she wanted this, right? She saw a joke that she found offensive and reported it expecting some punishment but that would have been suspension. I wonder what she has to say about this.

 

[Dragonbums]

-snip-

Woah dude, 80% of that comment literally had nothing to do with the topic at hand here.
Nor did it even have anything to do with the Escapist in general.
I think you need to vent that somewhere else because you seem pretty pissed about some stupid thing that happened over another website.
Especially seeing as how that particular incident is taking up a majority of your comment.

Calm down, relax, watch some tv.
Come back when you've cooled off.

 

[crimson sickle2]

This is just really stupid...eight years in prison? I can see making him stay overnight, that's a classic wrist-slap for pitiful cases, but eight years is just incredibly wrong. When was this guy's trial and what kind of a single-celled organism was his defense attorney?

Also by threating to shoot up a school and eat the still beating hearts of children is not something to acceptable joke about where anyone can see or hear. If you want to joke about it with your friends, don't got posting it on Facebook.

He was just using Facebook as a way to communicate with people he might've never met before. This case is like a kid played a game of (insert sport here) at a local park and the conversation in the article happened, then some woman overheard one sentence and called the cops immediately.

 

[JagermanXcell]

This kid clearly does not deserve 8 years FOR A JOKE. Sure a joke like that is in bad taste, but he was being sarcastic!
He was even quoted of saying "lol jk"!!! I can't facepalm hard enough, my desk can only take so much head.
Where was the investigation?
You can't just the arrest someone with no evidence and just one claim! (oh wait... Texas...)

Speaking of claim, whoever looked up this kids information illegally... YOU should be sent to jail. Invasion of privacy you numbnut.

 

[fletch_talon]

This case is like a kid played a game of (insert sport here) at a local park and the conversation in the article happened, then some woman overheard one sentence and called the cops immediately.

And assuming she wasn't able to discern by tone that they were joking about the kid being messed up in the head and wanting to kill a bunch of people, she would be perfectly justified in doing so.
The difference is what happens after and how severe the punishment should be for what was admittedly a childish mistake.

 

[Caiphus]

This case is like a kid played a game of (insert sport here) at a local park and the conversation in the article happened, then some woman overheard one sentence and called the cops immediately.

And assuming she wasn't able to discern by tone that they were joking about the kid being messed up in the head and wanting to kill a bunch of people, she would be perfectly justified in doing so.
The difference is what happens after and how severe the punishment should be for what was admittedly a childish mistake.

Yup, and the police should have taken one look at the comment and politely told her where to get off.

 

[fletch_talon]

This case is like a kid played a game of (insert sport here) at a local park and the conversation in the article happened, then some woman overheard one sentence and called the cops immediately.

And assuming she wasn't able to discern by tone that they were joking about the kid being messed up in the head and wanting to kill a bunch of people, she would be perfectly justified in doing so.
The difference is what happens after and how severe the punishment should be for what was admittedly a childish mistake.

Yup, and the police should have taken one look at the comment and politely told her where to get off.

Nup, the police should have looked at the comment. Investigated further to discover what the context of said comment was and whether there was reason to believe it may have been made in malice rather than ignorance. Upon finding nothing they should then have given the child a warning, possibly handing down some form of fine upon the boy and his family to make up for the waste of police time. Finally they should have thanked the lady for her concern and bringing it to their attention.

Y'know, their job.