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Texas Teen Jailed For FB Comment, On Suicide Watch

Geoist

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Why this kid remains in jail is completely beyond me.


Justin Carter, the Texas teen jailed over a sarcastic Facebook comment, is reportedly on suicide watch.

"He's very depressed, very scared, and ... concerned that he's not going to get out," Carter's father, Jack, said in an interview with CNN Tuesday. "He's pretty much lost all hope."

Carter, 19, was arrested in February of this year following an argument he had on Facebook regarding "League of Legends," an online video game.

Justin Carter, Teen Jailed For Facebook Comment, Reportedly On Suicide Watch


...And this country continues its spiral towards a police state.
 
Why this kid remains in jail is completely beyond me.


Justin Carter, the Texas teen jailed over a sarcastic Facebook comment, is reportedly on suicide watch.

"He's very depressed, very scared, and ... concerned that he's not going to get out," Carter's father, Jack, said in an interview with CNN Tuesday. "He's pretty much lost all hope."

Carter, 19, was arrested in February of this year following an argument he had on Facebook regarding "League of Legends," an online video game.

Justin Carter, Teen Jailed For Facebook Comment, Reportedly On Suicide Watch


...And this country continues its spiral towards a police state.

Well that's dumb. Half the time, arguing online through video games turns in to who can say the most offensive, bombastic, hilariously awful thing.

Local story is here.
 
Well that's dumb. Half the time, arguing online through video games turns in to who can say the most offensive, bombastic, hilariously awful thing.

Local story is here.

I remember back in my counter-strike days my friend and I would sometimes see who could get banned from a server faster. Through a series of scientific trials, we discovered that calling the admin a "****ing jew" would usually produce results within 15 seconds.
 
I remember back in my counter-strike days my friend and I would sometimes see who could get banned from a server faster. Through a series of scientific trials, we discovered that calling the admin a "****ing jew" would usually produce results within 15 seconds.

I usually went the "I hope you get [insert aggressive form of cancer] / AIDS." I also used to tell people, quite frequently, I'd wish their mom was more accurate with a coat hanger. I talked the most "crap" on probably GoW or CoD. I still do, sometimes, but the older I've gotten, the more relaxed I've gotten.
 
This kid shouldn't have been jailed for his comments, they were jokes (although stupid.)

Although rage gamers should be banned from the internet :mrgreen:
 
Third thread about him being on suicide watch?

Oh yes, and his daddy trying to spin down the comments. EACH thread has all the good stuff- right wing outrage, selective quotes, decrying the police state and 'thought' police's knee jerk reaction. THEN someone does a Paul Harvey and tells the rest of the story.

Thread dies out and sure enough someone starts from square one. :2wave:

Reason he is still in jail... might be more to do with dumb-ass parents and a poor selection of lawyers.

Bond should have already been reduced with some 'conditionals' like ankle bracelet and maybe a quick mental eval.
 
I remember - quite CLEARLY - right after various school shootings when people caught ear of what "so-n-so said on FB or Twitter just before the shooting occurred" and everyone freaked out saying things like, "Didn't anyone take him seriously! He was obviously ****ed in the head! Why didn't someone do something!"

Make up your minds - we either take things like that said on the net seriously . . . or we don't? It's either an ok joke or it's not.

What - someone is only taken seriously AFTER they do it? Report - let the cops and the law sort it out - if there's no evidence then they'll let him go. I don't want this incident to discourage someone else from reporting an online threat - only to have that person actually shoot up a school.

Don't want to go to jail? Don't make 'jokes' like that on the net which put you in the same risk category as someone like Eric Nelsen. Because it's NOT FUNNY.

The person who reported the comment did the RIGHT thing - perhaps if other people also did the RIGHT thing dozens of little kids would be alive and happy right now.
 
He's been justifiably arrested for a terrible sense of humor.

Is that first degree warped humor? I'm pretty sure there's a plane to Guantanamo in his future.
 
I remember - quite CLEARLY - right after various school shootings when people caught ear of what "so-n-so said on FB or Twitter just before the shooting occurred" and everyone freaked out saying things like, "Didn't anyone take him seriously! He was obviously ****ed in the head! Why didn't someone do something!"

Make up your minds - we either take things like that said on the net seriously . . . or we don't? It's either an ok joke or it's not.

What - someone is only taken seriously AFTER they do it? Report - let the cops and the law sort it out - if there's no evidence then they'll let him go. I don't want this incident to discourage someone else from reporting an online threat - only to have that person actually shoot up a school.

Don't want to go to jail? Don't make 'jokes' like that on the net which put you in the same risk category as someone like Eric Nelsen. Because it's NOT FUNNY.

The person who reported the comment did the RIGHT thing - perhaps if other people also did the RIGHT thing dozens of little kids would be alive and happy right now.

Right. Investigating is one thing. Throwing the kid in the slammer for a joke in poor taste is quite another.
 
Make up your minds - we either take things like that said on the net seriously . . . or we don't? It's either an ok joke or it's not.

Didn't he post lol, jk right after the post? Unless they found something else out about the kid I don't see why they would hopld him for months simply for a comment made during a video game.
 
I remember - quite CLEARLY - right after various school shootings when people caught ear of what "so-n-so said on FB or Twitter just before the shooting occurred" and everyone freaked out saying things like, "Didn't anyone take him seriously! He was obviously ****ed in the head! Why didn't someone do something!"

Make up your minds - we either take things like that said on the net seriously . . . or we don't? It's either an ok joke or it's not.

What - someone is only taken seriously AFTER they do it? Report - let the cops and the law sort it out - if there's no evidence then they'll let him go. I don't want this incident to discourage someone else from reporting an online threat - only to have that person actually shoot up a school.

Don't want to go to jail? Don't make 'jokes' like that on the net which put you in the same risk category as someone like Eric Nelsen. Because it's NOT FUNNY.

The person who reported the comment did the RIGHT thing - perhaps if other people also did the RIGHT thing dozens of little kids would be alive and happy right now.
Yeah, I really get annoyed by people who want to have it both ways. Many of the same people who think it's stupid for the comment described in the OP to be taken seriously because "lolz, he was clearly joking" would question why friends didn't report the comment if the guy did, in fact, end up shooting up a school. People will literally complain about everything. It's one of the reasons I don't take many people's criticisms of me seriously because no matter what you do, people will criticize you for it and say you should have done something else. Same case here.

I, frankly, think comments like that should be taken seriously, reported and investigated. People need to watch what they say.
 
Didn't he post lol, jk right after the post? Unless they found something else out about the kid I don't see why they would hopld him for months simply for a comment made during a video game.
"lol, jk" is meaningless. It could indicate that someone is just joking. It could also indicate that someone is a sociopath that thinks its funny to kill people. Judging a comment just by "lol, jk" is not a good idea. I do agree though that he shouldn't be arrested or anything after an initial investigation.
 
"lol, jk" is meaningless. It could indicate that someone is just joking.

By that token so is someone saying I'm sorry or excuse me, how exactly do you know they mean it? When did we become such a nation of disbelievers?
 
By that token so is someone saying I'm sorry or excuse me, how exactly do you know they mean it? When did we become such a nation of disbelievers?
My comment isn't about "being a nation of disbelievers". My comment is about words and phrases having more than one meaning within a conversation. "lol, jk" does not necessarily translate to "everything I said before this was a complete joke." Have you not ever been around a person who says that they are "just kidding" even when it was obvious that they are not?
 
My comment isn't about "being a nation of disbelievers". My comment is about words and phrases having more than one meaning within a conversation. "lol, jk" does not necessarily translate to "everything I said before this was a complete joke." Have you not ever been around a person who says that they are "just kidding" even when it was obvious that they are not?

In the context it was made I would assume it was a joke. It certainly doesn't justify months in jail and the plea bargain of 8 years in jail offered by the prosecution unless there is WAY more to this story than is being reported.

I have been around people who have said just kidding, the vast majority of the time they were. I'm kind of glad they all weren't thrown in the hoosegow for joking around.
 
In the context it was made I would assume it was a joke. It certainly doesn't justify months in jail and the plea bargain of 8 years in jail offered by the prosecution unless there is WAY more to this story than is being reported. I have been around people who have said just kidding, the vast majority of the time they were. I'm kind of glad they all weren't thrown in the hoosegow for joking around.

Seeing how there was a warrant for his arrest issued a week after the police searched his house there JUST might be a bit more to this then what his dad, lawyer and right wing blogs report.

You 'just kidding' friends post online that they were f***ed in the head, going to kill a bunch of kindergartners, river of blood, eat one of their hearts...(NOT eat your still beating heart which is an old macho line Daddy tried to claim)

One thing to say your going to mess your friend up, another to talk about killing a kindergarten full of little kids....

Some see the difference and some don't. :peace
 
Yeah, I really get annoyed by people who want to have it both ways. Many of the same people who think it's stupid for the comment described in the OP to be taken seriously because "lolz, he was clearly joking" would question why friends didn't report the comment if the guy did, in fact, end up shooting up a school. People will literally complain about everything. It's one of the reasons I don't take many people's criticisms of me seriously because no matter what you do, people will criticize you for it and say you should have done something else. Same case here.

I, frankly, think comments like that should be taken seriously, reported and investigated. People need to watch what they say.

So you're saying that anybody who says anything like that should be locked in jail for months? No one has a problem with this being investigated, we have a problem with him sitting in jail even after the police discovered he wasn't a threat at all and never had any intent to shoot anybody.

Investigation does not mean hard prison time whether he's guilty or not.
 
In the context it was made I would assume it was a joke. It certainly doesn't justify months in jail and the plea bargain of 8 years in jail offered by the prosecution unless there is WAY more to this story than is being reported.
Yeah, like I said before, I don't think he should have been arrested. It should have been investigated as it was. It certainly shouldn't have been dismissed just because he wrote "lol, jk." People who have gone on to commit crimes have been dismissed by people like you as "just joking" because they've written similar things. For that reason, some caution and skepticism is warranted.

I have been around people who have said just kidding, the vast majority of the time they were.
I didn't ask you if the people you've been around who have said "just kidding" were actually just kidding the vast majority of the time. I asked you if you had not ever been around someone that said "just kidding" when they were actually serious. Your use of the phrase "vast majority of the time" indicate that you have, in fact, been around such people. Thank you for agreeing with my point that "just kidding" is not always genuine.
 
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