Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding

[Jerr Conner]

http://www.lex18.com/global/story.as...Type=Printable

CLARK COUNTY
Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding

A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the "writings" that got him arrested are being taken out of context.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Poole disputes that he was threatening anyone.

"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing,"
said Poole. "Half the people at high school know me. They know I'm not that stupid, that crazy."

On Thursday, a judge raised Poole's bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.

Poole is being held at the Clark County Detention Center.

(Ok, what the hell!? Grrr, ARG!! Someone get me a shotgun!!)

[shamrock_uk]

I thought America was supposed to be the land of the free?!

Can he really be arrested for writing a story about zombies overrunning a school?! Crazy! Do we prosecute the Simpsons for showing the school being overrun by giant mechanical ants?!

This reminds me of Bowling for Columbine - where he shows pupils being arrested for trivial things, like pointing some item of food at a teacher and going 'bang'. To be honest, I dismissed it as Michael Moore nonsense, but now I'm not so sure!

Whatever happened to freedom of expression?! Over here, the only thing that's an offense is if you incite religious/racial hatred - otherwise you can say or write whatever the hale you want.

If this isn't standard across all states, perhaps this is an argument against state control for all you republicans out there - a government concerned about your freedom of speech could guarantee freedom of speech and individual states would not be able to infringe upon those rights. Sometimes uniformity is the way to go...

----

Oh, and what's a bond (in the legal sense) and can he get access to legal aid?

[ 03-04-2005, 08:18 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Jerr Conner]

Bond is Bail.

And it pisses me off someone can get arrested for something so stupid. I used to write short horror stories in High School with friends as characters and no one ever complained. Hell, they thought they were funny!

Though truthfully I asked people how they wanted to die.

Also someone pointed an interesting trend out to me when a conservative senator called for the FCC to censor purchasable cable channels with "indecent material". It seems it's becoming a trend where conservatives are now vying for more Government control (IE Marriage and Censorship on TV) when it wasn't too long ago that it was the Liberals vying for more Government control.

[ 03-04-2005, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: Jerr Conner ]

[Morgeruat]

Also someone pointed an interesting trend out to me when a conservative senator called for the FCC to censor purchasable cable channels with "indecent material". It seems it's becoming a trend where conservatives are now vying for more Government control (IE Marriage and Censorship on TV) when it wasn't too long ago that it was the Liberals vying for more Government control.

According to Wikipedia's entry for neo-con this is a trend in that subdivision of the conservative side of things. Personally I'm for less control, and a more hands off approach, give the states back the power.

If this isn't standard across all states, perhaps this is an argument against state control for all you republicans out there - a government concerned about your freedom of speech could guarantee freedom of speech and individual states would not be able to infringe upon those rights. Sometimes uniformity is the way to go...

As the article said it's a violation of the law in Kentucky, that particular power is left up to the states to decide, as the first amendment states, "Congress shall make no law..." I think that Kentucky has taken this too far, and this should definitely be a wake-up call for those citizens that the laws need to be reevaluated. Heck there are alot of laws on the books that make no sense in a modern world, for instance there are laws on the books in NYC stating what time you can and cannot run your herd of pigs down wall street (there are websites devoted entirely to listing laws that are grossly outdated, and nonsensical)

If it can be clearly shown that the kids writings are purely fictional, and he only retained the names of locations for use in his story, as he says, if he DOES end up getting convicted then it makes a very good case for throwing out, or reforming the law, if however his behavior, the writings, and availability to weapons fit together to provide a credible threat then lives may have been saved by the grandparents and their concern.

[ 03-04-2005, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

[shamrock_uk]

That's a really good article on Wikipedia actually, thanks for the pointer!

[Jerr Conner]

According to Wikipedia's entry for neo-con this is a trend in that subdivision of the conservative side of things. Personally I'm for less control, and a more hands off approach, give the states back the power.

I know that myself. It's just that trends can catch on...

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: That's a really good article on Wikipedia actually, thanks for the pointer!

Anytime, Wikipedia is one of the best online tools I've found. I tend to hate the neo-con label primarily because the majority of the people I've seen use it have no clue what it means, other than that it's a catchy buzzword the media likes right now and it pisses off conservatives.

[shamrock_uk]

Lol, good points Morgeruat.

Yeah, I'm a great wikipedia fan too - I don't really agree with the criticisms about bias - any controversial articles are labelled with a whopping great coloured notice saying "the accuracy of this article is disputed" or similar and you can view the current discussion as well. A wonderful vision.

Hey, this Project For A New American Century is real too!

I was trying to defend American foreign policy in a heated debate after my Middle-East tutorial the other day and dismissed all their talk of a masterplan as being nonsense! Someone mentioned this Project and I didn't believe! [img]graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Someone has to reign these guys in! This stuff is crazy...

[ 03-04-2005, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Spelca]

Umm, I think I read an article about this somewhere else too. Apparently a member of his family called the police on him. Here it says his grandparents found the story in his journal. So that means his grandparents called the police! What kind of people turn their grandchild to the police because of something he wrote? Wouldn't asking him about it be the first thing normal people would do? If they talked about it he could tell them it was about zombies... Also, shame on them for looking through his journal. What horrible people. (If that's what happened of course. [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

[Morgeruat]

Spelca, you're looking at this through the eyes of a juvenile, not as a parent, or other form of legal guardian. I can find no fault in the grandparents looking through his things, that's called being involved in their life and ensuring that you know what's going on. They probably skimmed it to see what was going on, saw the extreme amount of violence and got worried.

I feel they should have confronted him about it, but then again nothing legally says you have to, even in cases of things like sexual harrassment you are NOT required to confront the person if you report it to a higher power. Doing so would have prevented nearly all of the issues brought up by the article, but if he had a history of violence, well known grudges against the people in the story, etc it could all have led them to fear some sort of attack was imminent. At this point it's in the hands of the court to prove that the writings are harmless, but it probably should/could have been handled without getting law enforcement involved.