In-game dispute led to Facebook comments from 18-year-old referencing school shooting.
A Texas teenager has been jailed since March 27 over comments he made on Facebook after playing a League of Legends match. In February, an argument 18-year-old Justin Carter had with another League of Legends player spilled onto Facebook, where Carter made a comment referencing a school shooting.
“Someone had said something to the effect of ‘Oh you’re insane, you’re crazy, you’re messed up in the head,“” his father Jack Carter told Texas news station KVUE. “To which 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.”
Jack Carter said a woman from Canada saw the posting, did a Google search for his addresses and when she noticed he lived near a school, called the police. Justin Carter was later arrested and charged with making a terrorist threat.
Justin Carter faces eight years in prison, his father said, arguing that his son’s comments were sarcastic. “These people are serious. They really want my son to go away to jail for a sarcastic comment that he made,” Jack Carter said.
Justin Carter’s comments came just months after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 children and six adults were killed. Jack Carter said his son did not pay much attention to current events.
“Justin was the kind of kid who didn’t read the newspaper. He didn’t watch television. He wasn’t aware of current events. These kids, they don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t understand the implications,” Jack Carter said. “They don’t understand public space.”
Family and friends have launched an online petition asking for Justin Carter’s release and a rollback of certain anti-terrorism laws and investigatory practices.
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