Texas police say teen's Facebook comment a terror threat

Austin
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Austin, TX, police arrested a teen after police say he allegedly left a Facebook comment about shooting kids at a school. Reported by a Canadian woman, if convicted, the boy could face eight years in jail, though his father claims the comment was a joke.
A Huffington Post report says that local police arrested Justin Carter on March 27 at his New Braunefels, TX, home and charged him with making terroristic threats in February of this year. After Carter allegedly left a comment that said he would shoot school kids on his Facebook profile, the Huffington Post report states, local police arrested him after receiving a call from a Canadian woman who found the comment, researched Carter, and then reported him and the comment to police.


However, says a Parentdish report, the Canadian woman reported the incident after realizing that Carter used to live near a school zone. The Parentdish also reports that a spokesperson for the Austin police said

"After recent events statements such as the one Justin made are taken seriously." It was just a joke In an interview with KVUE, Carter?s father said that his son?s ?threat? was nothing more than a bad joke - that the incident transpired a few minutes after his son finished playing the video game called League of Legends. Justin's father said to KVUE that his son was simply ?blowing off steam? because he had gotten into an argument about the game with a friend. Carter?s father added that the Facebook status update in which his son left the comment is followed by ?LOL? and ?JK,? reports Mashable. As almost everyone who has ever lurked online ? and offline these days ? knows, ?LOL? means ?laughing out loud,? and ?JK? means, ?just kidding.? However, if these memes do indeed appear in the status updates immediately following the alleged threat, they corroborate the joke explanation. At the time of publishing, Carter's Facebook profile could not be found to verify the status of the claim. KVUE also reports that Carter?s father explained, ?Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,? to which he [his son] replied '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.?? Petitioning for freedom Carter?s mother, Jennifer Cater, started a petition on Change.org. The petition, titled, ?Release Justin Carter and Change Terroristic Threat Laws,? cites the first amendment in a letter to President Barack Obama. The petition text partially reads, ?Release Justin Carter from jail. Too many teenagers are being arrested, jailed and having their lives forever altered because of anti-terrorism laws and investigations that impede their 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech.? Jennifer Carter also states in the petition that her son was arrested without benefit of an investigation into the matter, and that when he was arrested, police seized no weapons, only his computer. She argues that this is not enough to violate her son's freedom of speech by arresting him. She also writes in the comments below the petition that the boy's father is "working with a friend," that the two came up with a t-shirt design for sale, for which all proceeds will go to fight for their son's release. At the time of publishing, the petition has gained 16,849 supporters. Too many teenagers arrested The Telegraph reports that just as recently as May 25, the Massachusetts Superior Court denied bail to 18-year-old Cameron D'Ambrosio for allegedly posting terroristic threats to his Facebook profile. According to the report, the threats state that D'Ambrosio would bomb Boston, and that the lyrics read: "a boston bombinb wait till u see the s I do." Police arrested D'Ambrosio in Methuen, which is about 30 miles north of Boston, charged him with ?communicating terroristic threats,? and if convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison, says the report. A similar incident in which a teen was arrested for making terroristic threats is included in this Digital Journalist report, which states that the Justice Minister said that Alberta takes threats appearing on a social media networks just as seriously as threats made elsewhere, especially in person. In this case, says the report, a teen in Alberta, Canada, was arrested in April of this year for posting shooting threats on Facebook. That Digital Journalist quoted another story in which a 12 year old was arrested and convicted for making threats.

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/353402

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