Seriously. If all y'all government idiots keep this up, we're going run out sometime in October.
A Texas teenager who has been in jail since March faces an eight-year prison sentence because of a threatening joke he made while playing an online video game.
In February, Justin Carter was playing “League of Legends” — an online, multiplayer fantasy game — when another player wrote a comment calling him insane. Carter’s response, which he now deeply regrets, was intended as joke.
“He 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,’ and the next two lines were lol and jk,” said Jack Carter, Justin’s father, in a statement to a local news channel.
What the... seriously? You have got to be kidding me. I see far, far worse in WoW trade chat on any given evening. It's a tasteless joke, sure; but in context, any reasonable person would figure he was just exaggerating for effect. Unless, of course, you're the woman who reported him:
But a Canadian woman who saw the post looked up Carter’s Austin address, determined that it was near an elementary school, and called the police. Carter was arrested one month later, and has been in jail ever since. He recently celebrated his 19th birthday behind bars.
Looked up his address? Why? If you honestly thought he was a threat to someone, why bother with that step? Did she think he was a lazy psychotic killer? "Oh, man, I'd totally go commit unbelievable acts of violence, but I'd have to walk, like, three blocks. Maybe next week." [1]
Meanwhile, if you're the police, why do you put this guy in jail over something like this? Investigate him, sure. Have someone with experience in diagnosing mental illness check him out, and if he is really disturbed, get him somewhere where he can be treated. Do something proactive instead of leaving him to rot in jail for the crime of making a tasteless joke.
Either there is way more to the story, or there are some folks in Austin whose careers deserve a good ol' length of hemp.
Next, we have a University of Virginia student
charged with three felonies because Virginia state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents are (a) thuggish idiots who are (b) incapable of telling the difference between a case of beer and a case of water, and (c) can't grasp the concept of "check out the situation to make sure we're not endangering ourselves or others before performing the canonical example of a
career-limiting move":
When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked.
That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.
A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.
"I couldn't put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified," Daly stated.
Good Lord. Six plainclothes law enforcement officers, one with a gun drawn, jump a young lady and her friends in a dark grocery store parking lot. What a great idea!
Now, I know that under those circumstances, my first thought would be, "Wow, this totally normal, and exactly the way that I would expect police to approach me!" [2]
However, Ms. Daly had the entirely unreasonable view that she and her friends were in terrible danger, merely because they were being attacked by gun wielding thugs
[3] who were yelling at her, jumping on her car, and trying to break her windows. How ridiculous, right? I mean, it's not like anybody
has ever impersonated a police officer.
Riiight. I wonder if Harris Teeter sells rope? We could use six lengths, I think.
So, naturally, she is the one who ends up being charged with a crime:
Prosecutors say she apologized profusely when she realized who the agents were. But that wasn't good enough for ABC agents, who charged her with three felonies. Prosecutors withdrew those charges Thursday in Charlottesville General District Court, but Daly still can't understand why she sat in jail...
Agents charged Daly with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police, all Class 6 felonies carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $2,500 in fines per offense.
Thankfully, the charges were dropped. Kudos to Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Chapman for having the good sense to look at the situation sanely. I can only hope that some good will come out of this situation. By which I mean, everyone involved in this dunder-headed bit of idiocy gets busted back down to zero, tossed out of their agency, and ends up having to work the graveyard shift as a Wal-Mart greeter for the remainder of their days.
[1] Just in case you're concerned about my mental health, dear reader, pleased be advised that this is an example of a what we edumacated types call sarcasm, which involves the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
[2] That would be another example of sarcasm, just in case you're keeping score.
[3] Feel free to substitute "ABC agents" if you're feeling pedantic. Not that there's much difference between the two in this story.