Kotaku
Last week 17-year-old Lance Timmering, a student at Northport High School in Washington State, was arrested after teachers' aides overheard him discussing plans to kill 20 to 30 fellow students. Apparently he was chatting with a fellow student and was quoted as saying, "If you chained two of the three exits you could shoot the students as they came out of the cafeteria." Abject stupidity aside, Lance claims that he was only coming up with ideas for a new online video game.
Oh goodness, so torn on this one. On one hand, arresting the guy and holding him on $10,000 bail seems a bit harsh. On the other hand, I get the distinct feeling that the whole FPS project angle is a defense and not an actuality. One thing I know for sure, however, is that the mainstream media is so adorable when they try to report on video games. Note that you might get an ad as the video begins, and if you try to watch it again without refreshing you'll learn far more about Spokane than you need to know.
edit - Moved video to after the jump at the insistence of common sense.
So the father is claiming this is politics and that his son's first amendment rights are being impugned, and also looks like discount Fonzie with a giant cold sore on his lip. We should arrest every game developer? Sure, if every game developer sat around discussing how to kill high school students perhaps. Maybe Jaffe, but he's harmless.
Okay, mostly harmless.
I can't help but think that maybe this time around the caution might have been justified. There is a difference between designing a Counter-Strike map with your school's layout and sitting there like a dumbass discussing the best way to massacre your classmates weeks after the biggest school shooting in history. At the very least the kid should get a couple days in stupid prison.
Snooping about on the web I found Lance's page on bebo, where he goes by the name UbnKilled - you bein killed. *sigh*. Some memorable quotes:
ummm... I love to play first person veiw shooters.. games such as Fear, Half-Life 2, Doom3... and I like to play basketball and write...
I collect mid-evil weapons and have.. *counts* 10 weapons in my room.. and that's not including the guns..... so actually... to however wants to try to kidnap me..... do it.. i dare ya
If i really wanted to I could steal some of his programs and hack virtually most accounts, but I wont so no worries...
So yeah, the guy's a tool and between the comments and the suggestion that he's stockpiling weapons and guns I would have totally had him removed from the school as soon as humanly possible were I on the school board. Though you and I can see the moronic bragging and posturing for what it is, school officials like Northport Superintendent Patsy Guglielmino probably can't.
"I have to look at every threat as though it is real irregardless what I know about the student," she said.
Irregardless indeed.
Court to decide if Northport threat was horrible prank or free speech [kxly.com via GamePolitics]
Photo courtesy of KXLY.com
