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Student Arrested for Making Videogame Map of School
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed May 02, 2007 02:33 PM
from the obviously-a-terrorist dept.
from the obviously-a-terrorist dept.
tanman writes "A student at the Houston-area Clements High School was arrested, sent to an "Alternative Education Center" and banned from graduation after school officials found he created a video game map of his school. School district police arrested the teen and searched his home where they confiscated a hammer as a 'potential weapon'. ' "They decided he was a terroristic threat," said one source close to the district's investigation.' With an upcoming May 12 school board election, this issue has quickly become political, with school board members involved in the appeal accusing each other of pandering to the Chinese community in an attempt to gain votes."
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Understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I never went through with it, because Columbine was still fresh in everyone's memory, and I was afraid that exactly this sort of thing would happen.
It's not a fear of terrorism that drives this sort of thing, or even a fear for our children. It's a fear of our children. We're so scared of the little guys that the instant they bring school into their video game hobby, we freak out.
This kid doesn't deserve to be arrested. He doesn't deserve to be thrust into "Alternative Education". He deserves to have someone ask him why he built the school in a video game. Let a psychologist evaluate him, and then either medicate the kid or let him go back to class.
(And someone should offer him constructive criticism on his level building techniques.)
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
It is ape law! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It is ape law! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
But really, sending him there is retarded. He's going to be there with a bunch of people who deserve to be there - drug addicts, violent people, unstable people, etc. Hes in danger - hes probably a nerd, and wont be very good at defending himself. ALC's (Alternative Learning Centers) are the worst places to send anyone "good" - its like throwing a kitten into a pack of rabid wolves.
Its hard to say that some people shouldnt be in there - i remember i looked across the room at this guy, and he freaked out, like in the movies:
"What are you looking at?"
"Nothing."
"So what, im nothing to you?"
"No, i was just looking across the room."
"What, im not good enough for you?"
There really are people like that out there, and i unfornately do agree that some people should be in there. That guy was quite ready to severely injure me - had the teacher not told him to shut up, i woulda been hit with a chair.
Of course, zero tolerance is what got me put in the school, and this poor guy is there for the same reason. What it boils down is that Zero Tolerance is what is garbage - and only the unstable nutjobs and hardcore drug addicts should be in ALC's.
-Red
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Interesting)
I got extra credit from my Visual Arts teacher for being 'creative', and lemme tell you, I had a HELL of a lot more than a hammer for weapons at my house.
Parent
Better grade than I got (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it matter that it was a game that he used instead of drafting software or a pen and paper. what makes him different than a student in a drafting class? For drafting we used autoCAD to map the school. the game was his "free" 3D draft studio.
That alone is not a crime or wrong. I did not read the article any more.
duke nuken 3d did have a simple world designer that was easy to pick up. I had alot of fun with it. That might have been the reason I took drafting classes where we made the same map but to scale this time.
quick, someone go arrest my drafting teacher. he is training terrorists.
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean people who make those gaming maps don't do it strictly as a training ground for their future slaughter?!
I feel so deceived, why would Jack Thompson lie to me like that?!!
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you make a map of your school for a first-person shooter:
- Yes.
- No.
- I started to, but didn't finish.
You, I, and I suspect many of the Slashdot population would be in the last category. Most schools are pretty complicated. I cheated a bit and didn't fill in every floor in every building, and skipped most of the furniture, and even then I didn't finish. Anyone who does manage a complete map is probably obsessive-compulsive, and a lot better at 3D art than me (even the bits I did 'finish' didn't look much like the original).Parent
Unslashdotted links (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metr
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&i
I'd scream at the ridiculousness of it all, but, then I'd probably be arrested for practising some sort of arcane terrorist warcry.
Parent
Re:Unslashdotted links (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah
Parent
Re:Unslashdotted links (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
What does anyone need with a hammer in their house anyway? Forget about banning him from graduation, this little mini-Osama should get sent straight to Gitmo. There is absolutely no reason to have a hammer in your home unless you intend to commit a terrorist act.
Plus, if all that weren't bad enough, this kid is ASIAN. Christ man, do you have any idea how crazy those Asians are? One of them killed a bunch of people at Virginia Tech just a short time ago. This categorically PROVES that all Asians are sociopaths just itching to shoot up a school. You can't argue with this logic, it is completely impervious.
You have no idea what we're up against here, man. This shit is SERIOUS. Don't come crying to me when your kid comes home with a big nasty bump on his head because one of these little Asian al Qaeda wannabes smacked him over the head with a mallet. You were warned.
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
He might have had the hammer for home defence. There is nothing
wrong with some sport hammering from time to time. Of course, we
believe that hammers should be licensed, and background checks done
before a hammer can be purchased. Training is, of course, very
important, and hammers should never be left where children could
harm themselves with them. If appropriate, a hammer lock can
be had at any high school that teaches wrestling.
Dont forget about the constitution, and the right to bear hammers.
Responsible hammer ownership is a right, and should not be infringed
by a few nut cases.
As Charles said "you can have my hammer, when you pry it from my cold,
dead fingers".
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
People are always misquoting that amendment. It's the right to hammer bears. Which, as the supreme court affirmed in smokey v. ashcroft, means that you have the right to get a bear drunk if it's more than 18 years old.
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
As a proud, lifetime member of the National Hammer Association, I must insist that we not go too far here. It's part of our constitutional rights - the right to Arm and Hammer - to arm ourselves with hammers. This incident is merely one more reason that everyone ought to carry hamers everywhere they go - if others had been armed with hammers, this student would have had a serious disincentive to consider possibly carrying out the egregious act he was prevented from possibly committing.
Soon, crazy liberal will want to outlaw air hammers, jack hammers, Mike Hammers, pipe hammers - even Diesel hammers - you name it. Act now to preserve your hammer rights - join the NHA.
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! If we outlaw hammers, only outlaws will be able to put shelves up!
Parent
Remember the Blacksmith. (Score:5, Interesting)
During the US revolutionary war, a blacksmith performed an errand for General Washington, only to return home and find that redcoats had murdered his family in his absence. The blacksmith took a heavy sledge from his workshop and walked onto the battlefield of Brandywine. There, before they finally brought him down, he slew 20 british soldiers. With a hammer.
No, I'm not being serious about a hammer being a viable weapon, not these days. (Although note that the Blacksmith story is true, from all references I can find.)
I just found it ironic, that the Blacksmith of Brandywine went on a murderous rampage in response to oppression from a ruthless government...and now, our government is so scared of our children that they're even taking our hammers away.
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Interesting)
Crime no longer requires you do anything illegal, nor does it require you intend to do anything illegal; instead you just have to be a potential threat.
I wonder how long till weightlifting will be an arrest able offense? I mean, think about it, those guys are just getting strong so they can commit crimes! What other possible reason could there be?!
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just why should he be evaluated or asked about what he's done?
It's not in any way strange to apply your day-to-day experiences to hobbies and fantasies.
I wrote a text adventure in my youth where large parts of the layout was based on my school and public library. A classmate won an award for the painted plywood model he built of our school. No-one sent either of us to psych eval.
What this guy needs is for people to give him a fucking break. It's his school, and his knowledge about its layout is his to do whatever the hell he wants with.
As for the police confiscating potential weapons, that's worse than any police state I've ever heard of.
I say that Condoleezza Rice has several potential weapons in her office, and she could potentially go on a murder spree in the White House. Since you can't prove otherwise, now go lock her up. Or set this kid and anyone else who's been arrested for potential (i.e. thought) crimes free, and erase their bloody records.
Parent
This is a reactionary response (Score:5, Insightful)
Add to this a mix of fascist officials and craven lawmakers who choose to ignore rights in search of appearing to address the security problem (insert Ben Franklin quote here).
You're right, it's a culture of fear, but it goes beyond our children. It's the technology and to a large extent, a media-inspired culture of fear... of EVERYTHING.
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh. My. Gods.
When I was in high school - just as I was about to graduate, actually - some or other FPS was very popular (which FPSs were current in 2000?) and I thought I could design a level containing my school and its immediate surroundings.
So I talked to some people, to a few teachers and to the people in maintenance, who then gave me a whole bunch of plans of every single floor as well as the front and side views of the whole building to carry home and have fun.
Then, alas, came college and I never went through with it; I did toy with it for a while, but couldn't convert the units... much as I fiddled with the internal help (I had no Internet access back then), I could find no correlation between metres and whatever the unit used in the level editor, i.e. I had no idea which units the editor used.
However, had I succeeded, the level would have been available as a free download on my school's official website.
My teachers thought that in fact, yes, it could be good marketing for our school.
And mind you, that was in Croatia. Not that long after the war. During the time both angry kids and parents came (and they still do come, from time to time) armed to school and threaten teachers, or drop a bomb in the teachers' room because of a fail grade.
Yet for some reason no-one thought it might cause more violence.
Parent
Tell them how you feel (Score:5, Informative)
The School's site is here. [k12.tx.us]
Principal: Kevin Moran - Kevin.Moran@fortbend.k12.tx.us - 281-634-2156
Assistant Principal: Lorri Hubert, Lorri.Hubert@fortbend.k12.tx.us [mailto] - 281-634-2164
Lead Counselor: Alice Ledford - Alice.Ledford@fortbend.k12.tx.us [mailto] - 281-634-2157
Fort Bend ISD's site is here. [k12.tx.us]
Superintendent: Timothy R. Jenney, Ph.D. - superintendent@fortbend.k12.tx.us [mailto] -
The entire board of directors of the Fort Bend ISD can be reached here. [72.14.253.104] (Google Cache in anticipation of slashdotting).
Parent
Re:Understood... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
A bit of an overreaction (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but the idea of creating a school map for you and your friends to play is something that goes back as far as Doom. Kids create these environments because they're familiar, not because they want to go shooting up the place. Only Jack Thompson believes that unbalanced people "train" for killing on these games. The truth of the matter is that ole' Jack is full of sh*t. His claim on Fox news that a previous shooter had created maps of his school turned out to be bunk. He had created maps for Counter Strike, but nothing even vaguely related.
If this map disturbed parents (which is an understandable concern given recent events), then the school's action should have been to evaluate the individual, not immediately kick him out of school. Pretty much all of the shooters in recent history were known to be mentally unbalanced prior to the shootings. An evaluation of the individual's mental state and school records would clarify if he was a threat or not. If not (which it doesn't sound like in this case), you ask them to discontinue the behavior, delete the maps, and go about school as usual. But instead, we give these kids a real reason to hate the faculty. Way to go guys.
Re:A bit of an overreaction (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe in applying the cure where the problem is. If parents or teachers feel disturbed, they should go see a shrink. There's therapies available that can assist with irrational fears.
Parent
It's even worse than an overreaction (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's assume for a second that they are right. The guy is violent, mentally unstable and is using his home grown CS map to practice his planned killing spree (which was apparently to be carried out with a hammer). What do they do? They merely transfer him to a different school. In no way, shape or form do any of the school's actions prevent him from entering the school again and carrying out his assumed plans. At best, they've moved the problem to a different place, and put others at risk that hadn't been at risk before. At worst, it really pisses him off, and he escalates his planned violence (pipe bombs really aren't hard to make). Any which way you look at it, the actions of the school and the police were completely irresponsible.
Factor in that the guy had none of these plans to begin with, and you're looking at a massively incompetent school administration, board and police whose only goal is to cover their ass. They don't care whether what they did solved any issues; all they wanted was to have something to point to if the student does go apeshit and the inevitable question of "who's to blame?" rolls around.
The US is going down the shitter, and attitudes like these towards kids and education are the reason why. Way to ruin your future generation.
Parent
Linky? (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is important how? (Score:5, Insightful)
In Russia, government hammers you (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was going to high school, we had war games. Not simulated, but real - in person, on campus. And it was not the idea of some demented student, it was organized by the PE coaches.
The gym was one fort, the bleachers on the eastern side of the football field were the other. Each structure had a hose nearby. The gave us a bunch of balloons, and we had water balloon wars.
To the best of my knowledge, none of my classmates has committed any mass murders in the several decades since then.
I worry that policies as mentioned in TFA may actually increase violent incidents like Va tech. We were allowed - even encouraged - to burn off frustrations in acts of simulated violence. Then we dried off, went back to class, and were rather good students.
Today, young men are being denied symbolic outlets for violence. It come as no surprise to me that Chu did what he did. I worry that there will be more.
Safely playing out a fantasy (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd absolutely love to make a mod for a racing game of my neighborhood, the Bay Area. If hundreds of people uploaded photos of their houses and nearby buildings, that would be a start for modeling the environment. Then people could speed through the streets safely, without actually endangering anyone or breaking the law.
Frightening (Score:5, Interesting)
This is so ridiculous that it hurts. There's been no scientific evidence that gamers--even gamers who enjoy violent video games--are any more likely to be violent people. And there's certainly been no evidence that game developers or game modders are any more likely to be violent people. Where do authorities get off assuming that someone with an active imagination, who enjoys the fantasy of games, is a terrorist? I hope he sues the school board, and wins.
Re:Frightening (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
They Found a Hammer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Developers do this all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA: "Speakers at the FBISD Board's April 23 meeting alluded to the Clements senior's punishment, and drew a connection to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in which a Korean student shot and killed 32 people."
In which video games *WERE NOT INVOLVED*. But that clearly doesn't matter. Something bad happened involving people under the age of 21, and as such video games must be at the heart of it.
-lw
Psychos... (Score:5, Insightful)
We need revolution and we need it now (Score:5, Interesting)
I also remember a group called the POCD made a DoomII mapset with school layouts. The maps turned out to be a hit in deathmatch, especially on "Last man standing" mode that was added in a recent Doom port, Skulltag.
Now you can be arrested for...... this? What I got.. this plaque for?
*a tear falls down his cheek*
America, what is wrong with you?
Re:We need revolution and we need it now (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to working on doom and quake levels based on real world locations, I also grew up around guns (with a very healthy respect for them), listened to heavy metal, and was probably considered a non-conformist to most (ie: trench coat and combat boot wearing, angst ridden, KMFDM listening, rivet head-teenager).
Had I gone to school after Columbine or VA Tech, I would have likely been arrested and secured for the safety of society, instead of going on to serve honorably in the US Marine Corps, working in medical research, and raising a family. The real shame here is how this kid's life will forever be changed because of overzealous scaremongers trying to make examples of anyone who doesn't fit in their homogenized view of society.
-Rick
Parent
insane (Score:5, Interesting)
If any high school students are reading this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please take heart. Not all of us adults are such utter fucking morons.
Not that you'd know it from the comments on the article, where a depressing number of people say they hope he has learned from his "mistake."
I bet he has. He's learned to keep his activities secret from the authorities if he values his freedom. He's learned a little bit about what it's like to live in an increasingly paranoid, authoritarian society, where innocuous activities that harm nobody can get one declared an enemy of the people. He's learned that politicians have no compunctions about advancing their own careers by ruining the lives of the people they supposedly serve.
His mistake wasn't making the map. If FPSes had been around when I was in high school I would have loved to play on a map of the school; unlike a bunch of adults, it seems, I understood and understand the difference between video games and reality. His mistake was not being sufficiently clandestine when he shared it with his friends. Hopefully he will take this as a valuable lesson about the value of covering his tracks thoroughly in his daily life.
People study this (Score:5, Interesting)
http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/projects/ARQuake/ww
hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I have one question for the school board. Did they bother to make sure that he weighs as much as a duck before they took action against him?
I have a solution to this problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally, I would oppose such a suggestion. Were the US run like typical European democratic-socialists the schools would probably be responsibly managed. But with one political party fighting to destroy public education, and the other party in the pocket of the public school bureaucracy, there's no voice left for the kids being ruined by these bullshit political non-events.
I honestly think government can do a good job of providing basic public services. But right now, the US government cannot. At least not until the leaders of our political parties come to some basic consensus on the role of government. Until then, it will be one crazy situation after another as they duke it out. All while citizens and their kids get fucked by the very public institutions that were ostensibly created for their benefit.
Spiderman 3 (Score:5, Insightful)
Are the devs terrorists?
Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, you'll respawn in Mrs. Crabapple's classroom for round 2.
Parent
Re:Oh, For Christ's F***ing Sake... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is par for the course in this part of the United States. Ignorance, fear and xenophobia run rampant, white men run everything, and opportunism prevails at every turn. Police forces are treated as a paramilitary force, and zero tolerance is the rule in schools - even though it only means that more kids every year get fewer chances at straightening up and becoming successful.
Louisiana (and other population-losing red states) wonder why it's best and brightest move away as soon as they finish college - crap like this is the reason why.
Parent
Re:Hammers? (Score:5, Funny)
Look, I found a terrorist song!
If I had a hammer I'd hammer on the freedom
I'd hammer on the infidels
All over this land
I'd hammer out patriots
I'd hammer out christians
I'd hammer out apple pie and baseball
All over this land
Parent
Re:Got free speech? (Score:5, Interesting)
"If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society."
How ironic. [wikipedia.org]
Parent