Student arrested over Va. Tech remarks

[beakersloco]

I was looking around on yahoo news and saw this article

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/virginia_...524jmeElxH2ocA

Kinda messed up if you ask me that a person cant voice his opinions with out people getting rattled.

[lobster_roboto]

what the hell?

So basically what the guy said was I can understand why he did it he was batsh-- crazy!

Students are afraid of to come to class with him because he has an opinion and by the sound of it a very good one.

The pussification of America continues.

[retired]

During a class discussion Tuesday of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, Max Karson "made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people," university police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said.

Several witnesses told investigators Karson, who turns 22 on Thursday, said he was "angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people," according to a police report. Witnesses "said they were afraid of him and afraid to come to class with him," Wiesley said.

Karson, of Denver, was arrested Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution.

Beakersloco, voicing one's opinions is one thing, but this guy seems to be as nutty as the shooter at VT. I bolded what I thought one might consider salient. Why wait for him to carry out his actions. There is enough there to hold him for a psychiatric hold to see if he is a mental case. Obviously,according to their laws relating to educational facilities, what he said is a misdemeanor.

State laws pertaining to educational facilities in Ca. for example, are usually more restrictive as to what you can do or say there.

I really don't see a problem with them taking action on this guy instead of waiting to see if he can beat Cho's numbers.

[beakersloco]

I took it a different way.... that he probaly made a comment about he understood how a person could get mad enough to do what he did then later on or earlier he had made a statement about how some things iritated him. I dont see that having an insight as being a bad thing. With out hearing the full context of his statements I truly belive that he was singled out simply because his opinions on the matter differed from everyone elses.


But on the same note do you believe that if I made a statement about columbine that hey I was also picked on in school and that I understand why they did it and that I have had similar thoughts of geting even with those that picked on me in school... does that mean that I should be arrested simply because I understand what they went thru and voiced my opinion on it?

If so on the same note an anti-gun person who knows that you are into guns and you voice your opinion that people should be allowed to carry at schools .... should you be arrested simply for voicing that opinion as who knows if you will do it anyway ?

I foresee lots of people getting picked up/questioned simply because thier opinion differs from everyone else (since people can easily be scared by someone with a different opinion or backgound then them) or because they are loners or they choose not to be apart of the status quo. I understand that for everyones safety things need to be checked out but come on that charge

"a misdemeanor charge of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution."

Sounds like a BS charge to me .... more taxpayer money wasted if you ask me.

As far as getting to him before he had an oppurtunity to beat cho's numbers then maybe the media should stop hyping it up and repeating the same crap over and over again and in my opinion they are just telling a copycat how to go and do the same thing.

[jednp]

the thing that got me the most from this story... was the belt being confiscated. i've seen belts like that being worn quite a bit..

and with the first student... it's hard to say what should have been done... I guess it all applies to their laws there.. and being Boulder... it's hard to say. But hey, it's alright for one of their professors there to call America terrorists, etc..

I'm not OK with a student sympathizing with the shooter... That shooter wasn't picked on... people tried to talk with him.. say hi to him... he would just ignore them like they didn't exist.. HE created his lonely world on purpose.. HE shunned everyone else when they tried to talk to him.

But if this kid just sympathized with the shooter... he has the right to do so... if he made other comments.. it could put it in another context.. and then if he was being disruptive or whatever... they may have had grounds to take the action they did.

either way... it's not very cool when people have sympathy for a shooter, especially one who created his own isolation on purpose.. then acts like he's blaming it on everyone else for ignoring him.

[Ed 2001 SS]

One of the restrictions placed on the first amendment is that you aren't allowed to say things that will incite a riot. Think of the "yelling fire in a crowded theater" scenario. Based on the acts of the lunatic this week, it is reasonable to assume that those words would be problematic in a college setting. I can understand arresting the kid, even if the arrest might later get thrown out.

[ZBoater]

This is a very slippery slope. You can't be arresting people for saying things, and hind-sight is 20-20. It will be a scary day when folks can be locked up because they "seem" weird or say the wrong things and act "funny".

The true issue in this tragedy is the concept of a "gun free" zone in a country where the right to bear arms is guaranteed. What we have done is created zones where murdering lunatics can operate unchallenged.

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Thomas Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774_1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

[deepdiver]

I think Ed really nailed it.

And I also agree with jednp about the belt.

At Oregon's Lewis & Clark College, another student was detained by campus police Wednesday shortly before a vigil for the Virginia Tech victims when he was spotted wearing an ammunition belt. Portland police later determined that it was "a fashion accessory" made of spent ammunition, and said the man did not have a weapon. The belt was confiscated.

Who the hell do they think they are? I would actually be willing to spend thousands of dollars on a lawsuit to recover my $35 confiscated belt from the police. This was the part of teh story I found most disturbing.

[AKM]

Originally Posted by ZBoater

You can't be arresting people for saying things,

Of course you can. What do you think would happen if you walked up to a cop and said "Alot of people are going to die in that building tomorrow." Or stood up on an airplane and said "There is a bomb on this plane."

The First Amendment does not protect threats. A threat does not have to be a specific promise to do harm. It only has to be intended to make people feel threatened. Saying that flourescent lights make you mad enough to kill people is a threat.
.

[Ishpeck]

I hereby declare Colorado inelligable for vaccination.