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[bryant]

Remember the kid in Kentucky who got in trouble for writing a story about zombies taking over his high school? It's more complicated than he claimed. According to local police, there weren't any zombies in the stories, and there's more to the case against him than just some fiction.

I did a little poking around to see if I could find anything out about this "No Limited Soldiers" gang. The only sign of it on Google is, um, a Command and Conquer clan. Their page seems to be down. I found their home page on archive.org, and whois data shows that the domain is registered to someone in the Netherlands, so probably no connection there.

In defense of something or other, the kid's teachers still look like they're overly nervous. They're on record saying that "they had not assigned such a story or talked to him about it -- and had they seen it, they would have been obligated to report him to authorities." Zombies are scary. Overreaction to zombies makes me wonder if the police didn't overreact to something else.

Or, hey, the kid could be a junior whacko who was thinking seriously about armed revolt. Hard to tell at this point.

Comments

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

The only way te police are justified in this is i h showed up t school in bombs and with a machine gun. There should be no such thing as a thought crime.

[bryant]

Yeah, you know, that's the issue. I would expect parents to say "Hm, our kid is writing something scary and we should talk with him." But -- and this is what I just realized was bugging me -- there's no way that should lead to a trial absent actual conspiracy to commit a crime. And there's no indication that anything went even close to that far.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That's because 9/11 Changed Everything[tm].

[animated-max.livejournal.com]

So... according to local police, there are no zombies in his story. Odd, you'd think the police would have said something about it when the news about the kid's arrest first came out. Something like, "What? Zombies? There's no zombies in this kid's story!"

I see three possibilities.

1. Police knew there were no zombies in the kid's journal, but declined to deny the existence of zombies in the original story for unknown reasons.

2. There were zombies in the kid's story, but someone has decided it's easier to prosecute the kid by pretending otherwise.

3. There were never any zombies in the story, and the police didn't deny the existence of zombies becase they never actually read the entire story -- they arrested and jailed the kid without reading what he claimed was a fictional story, assuming his guilt and not bothering to verufy his one claim to innocence, that it was obviously a work of fiction.

Maybe there's a good reason for it, but (as I wrote before) I still think it's very odd the lack of zombies wasn't noted by the police when the kid was first arrested.

[bryant]

4. The police aren't supposed to be prosecuting the case in the media.

That's pretty standard procedure -- the cops aren't in the business of playing he said she said during a trial, and doing so can prejudice the case and result in a mistrial.

[animated-max.livejournal.com]

I'd see your point if the police made no comment about the nature of the kid's story --- but they did. From the original news report:

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.

So, the police are willing to characterize the nature of the story to the press, but won't point out there are no zombies?

Of course, it could be that
5. The media neglected to report the police always said there were no zombies.