Justin Carter, that teenager who was charged and jailed after making sarcastic remarks on Facebook, is reportedly on suicide watch. I’m so tired of what passes for a justice system coming down hard on ordinary people for these imaginary infractions (like chalking on the sidewalks). I find it hard to believe that someone, somewhere (like the Reddit community) hasn’t started a bail fund for this kid:
“He’s very depressed, very scared, and … concerned that he’s not going to get out,” Carter’s father, Jack, said in an interview with CNN Tuesday. “He’s pretty much lost all hope.”
Carter, 19, was arrested in February of this year following an argument he had on Facebook regarding “League of Legends,” an online video game.”[S]omeone had said something to the effect of ‘Oh you’re insane, you’re crazy, you’re messed up in the head,’” Jack recalled to ABC affiliate KVUE in an earlier interview.
“To which [Justin] 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’ [all sic].”
Despite the teen’s insistence of “lol” and “jk” — internet shorthand for “laughing out loud” and “just kidding,” respectively — a woman who came across the comment on Facebook failed to see the humor. She alerted police after realizing Carter lived near an elementary school. On February 13, a judge authorized a search warrant.
A warrant for Carter’s arrest came one week later, reports WPTV.Given recent school-related violence, the threat was taken seriously, meaning Carter has been charged with making a “terroristic threat,” a felony that carries up to an eight-year prison sentence.His bail: $500,000, reports NPR, an amount his family can’t pay, thus keeping him behind bars.
“Without getting into the really nasty details, he’s had concussions, black eyes, moved four times from base for his own protection,” Jack elaborated on Justin’s current condition in jail.
“He’s been put in solitary confinement, nude, for days on end because he’s depressed. All of this is extremely traumatic to this kid. This is a horrible experience.”
You have to be very careful what you say with the NSA looking over your shoulder. This kid has suffered enough at the hands of the empire. As have Manning, Snowden, and countless others over the years.
HERE is the friggin reason we don’t want the government monitoring our communications! They can’t read, reason or see beyond political agenda. If this kid committed a crime by this blow off, then Susie should bond a half mill for re-posting it. Context be damned!
People are so fragile . . you never know. Poor kid.
So why does this offended woman get to remain anonymous? Why don’t the news organizations name her and put her on the TV and ask her if she’s happy now that this kid is probably going to die in jail or a mental hospital because of her over-reaction? Same for the judge and prosecutor. Why no scrutiny of them and their careers? I guarantee if people like these didn’t know they could do their busybody BS without anyone pushing back, they wouldn’t bother. Of course some will act like it’s a crucifiction to put her/them on the spot, nevermind that is exactly what she/they are doing to others.
And if he doesn’t succeed in killing himself and manages to beat the charges against him, his life is still ruined cuz he’ll never get a decent job. Killing himself is a perfectly rational decision for him given his prospects going forward in the society we have grown into.
I wish him luck, whatever that means for him. And if he does die, he shouldn’t feel like he’s missing out on a great future. The future is turning shitty for more and more people every year (personally I think peak oil will do us in a lot sooner than climate change).