The Thin Blue Line at MySpace:
How’s your Memorial Day? Mine is kicking ass. Why, you ask? Well, in case you didn’t click the link, yours truly has made the pages of Time Magazine. I haven’t read the entire article myself, but so far, it looks promising. So be sure to pick up the June 6th issue of Time.
Teen Gets House Arrest in Nev. Shooting:
RENO, Nev. — A 14-year-old boy who shot and injured two fellow middle school students was sentenced Friday to house arrest until he completes 200 hours of community service.
Prosecutors had recommended James Scott Newman, who pleaded guilty to battery with a deadly weapon, be placed in a state juvenile facility.
Washoe County Juvenile Court Master Janet Schmuck acknowledged she struggled with the sentence before she ordered to him to have electronic monitoring and 24-hour supervision at his parents home in Reno.
“If it does not work to the court’s satisfaction, James will be committed,” Schmuck said. “But I want to give James and his family an opportunity to make it work.”
Deputy District Attorney Jo Lee Wickes immediately appealed the sentence, saying it was not proper given the seriousness of the crime.
He shot two people and all he gets is an ankle bracelet and community service. The judge is living up to her last name.
Game Creator Says Columbine Was A Wake-Up Call:
To be fair, I want you to read the entire article and form your own opinion. However, read this quote from mutant Super Columbine Massacre RPG designer Danny Ledonne…
Ledonne still remembers vividly his reaction to Columbine back in 1999 when it shocked him out of his downward spiral.
“My reaction sort of had the same duality that a lot of people, or at least some people, had to 9/11, and that would be: I can’t believe this is happening and it’s about time,” he said.
And yet, you still insist your game does not glorify Harris and Klebold.
The Register’s Young Adult Board of Contributors Weighs In:
Here’s what a young contributor to the Des Moines Register had to say about Super Columbine Massacre RPG…
It has recently been in the news that a computer game entitled “Super Columbine Massacre RPG” is gaining popularity. The game mimics such events as the 1999 Columbine School shooting. Containing actual footage of the shooters, players are put in the shoes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in an attempt to kill as many students and teachers as possible. While victims’ parents and the public are outraged and appalled, not everyone is reacting negatively to this ignominy. Richard Castaldo, a paralyzed victim of the incident, claims to have played the game. While he says some parts were difficult to get through, in the end he didn’t think it was all that bad-“it might even be helpful,” he says. Though I’m no foe of video games, the level of disrespect and heartlessness in this game is astonishing. The game makes a sick mockery of a tragedy that affected not only the residents of Littleton, Colorado, but also the nation. It desensitizes people to such calamities and underestimates the devastating effects. We need to distinguish between fiction and reality-the horrors of school shootings are no game.
-Jo Gruenewald, Ames
I agree with her 100% except that, in Richard’s own words, he did not give the game a “thumbs up”.
Mother: Ashley Reeves neck not broken:
Good news for Ashley Reeves, the 17-year-old girl who was assaulted and left for dead in the woods by gym teacher Samson Shelton. It was originally thought that Shelton had broken her neck. He confessed to hearing her neck snap when he assaulted her. However, her parents are reporting that is not the case…
“Her neck was injured in the attack, but there are no fractures and no paralysis,” her mother, Michelle Reeves said.
No word yet on how this will affect the charges against Shelton.
It’s been a while since we read the mail from the mutants so let’s get started, shall we?
This one is from my entry on the Columbine Rampart Range Tapes…
jacob Says:
fuck all u white haters out there im not that racist but when it comes to niggers tryen to get at us that pisses me off u niggers have enough problems so fuck off…. by the way that was are ancestors thatdid that shit to you so dont pull that shit on inasent ppl by the way ur not african americans its africans in america
o and marcus and dante get a fucken life.. you stuped ass niggers probaly have an ique of 50 u fucken idoit and come in to my school and pull that shit ill fucken but ur thick skulled head in u bitch ass niggers
If they have an ique of 50, it’s about 50 points higher than yours, Klanboy. And I love how he says he’s not a racist except “when it comes to nig**ers”. I hate to break it to you, Spunky, but that is the textbook definition of racism.
Then we have this comment about the Columbine RPG designer being outed…
Lay-Z-Boy Says:
This may be off topic or whatever but i dont give a fuck. Anyways i just wanted to say that Eric and Dylan what they have taught me is that i can do anything i want. They may have been bad guys to you but to me they were in a way heros they opend my eyes and took my mind to another level beyond all this do what society tells you sheep bullcrap. And what the hell all your post are really stupid all you see is a couple kids that killed some people. I think that you gotta open your eyes and take a look at the world around you and not always see things just for what they are. It’s something youll never understand. To me your the fucking mutant and your the one that should be non existent. Mutants? You are a fucking asshole,it’s people like you bringing everyone who has differnt veiws down.
Your just a fucking number your useless i dont evan see you as the same species. You got alot of evolving to do buddy,suck my balls.REB and VODKA thanks for showing me that i can do anything whether it be good or bad.
I remember when I was young and idealistic, and I thought society’s rules didn’t apply to me. Then I grew up and got a job. With that whole “I’m the rebel, and you’re all sheep” bit, I see only one option of employment in your future…
(more…)Pine school shooting suspect to enter plea:
James Scott Newman, the 14-year-old gunman in the Pine Middle School shooting, has agreed to enter a plea this Friday and will be sentenced…
David Houston, the boy’s lawyer, said this was the best outcome.
“The family and James look forward to the opportunity to put his matter behind them by accepting responsibility for what he has done and ask the court for what they felt to be the appropriate penalty,” Houston said.
“The family and James continue to extend their apologies to the young people injured in this event and their families,” Houston said.
Since James is a juvenile, the details of the plea won’t be released until Friday.
Just another article about mutant game maker…excuse me…”filmmaker” Danny Ledonne being outed by one of his detractors. Nothing I haven’t covered before. However, I keep seeing in the media that Columbine survivor Richard Castaldo says he supports the game. That’s not entirely true…
Various media reports have featured condemnations of the game from relatives of the victims. However, Richard Castaldo, paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the shooting played the game and welcomed it as an addition to the books, films and articles that have focused on the tragedy.
Here are the original quotes from the Kotaku interview…
Q. What did you think of it?
A. It probably sounds a bit odd for someone like me to say, but I appreciate the fact at least to some degree that something like this was made. I think that at least it gets people talikng about Columbine in a unique perspective, which is probably a good thing. But that being said there are a lot of things that are har to play or watch. And it seems to partially glamorize what happened. It shows a stark-contrast between fantasy and real life in an interesting way.
I like the part in the game where if you go up to the water fountain theres a thing that comes up that explains that the water in denver is a little bit hard because it contains calcium and magnesium but is harmless. Answering the hypothetical question of “Was there something in the water, that caused this?” Clearly not, and the causes for this are not easily apparent.
Q. Did the idea that you were playing as Klebold and Harris upset you?
A. It’s all third person, so your kind of looking down on this thing as all of this horrible stuff is going on. It reminded me of the movie ‘Elephant”, because it showed a lot of stuff in cutscenes that they were doing that led up to that fateful day. It showed them doing a lot of stuff that supposedly influenced thei actions. TherLike it showed them being bullied, and how much they hated it. But, then the people they actually killed had nothing to do with that.
And the part they leave out is…
But, at the same time there are some dialogue in the game that comes up after you kill the students that refers to you as being “brave boys”, which i would hope was supposed to be ironic, because clearly what they did was not brave or heroic in anyway, it was quite the opposite. It has you killing students with absolutely no protection whatsoever. Which is what actually happened. So if the killers (or anyone else for that matter) thought that what they were doing was heroic in any way they were deeply fooling themselves. People ask me all the time, “Did you know them?” And my answer is of course no, i didn’t. And, I didn’t do a damn thing to either one of them. So, I think the game kinda highlights that. That there was no real rhyme or reason why specific people got killed.
So, I think they’re unfairly giving the game his seal of approval.
Richard, if I’m wrong, please correct me.
UPDATE: I e-mailed Richard to ask him what he thought of the media’s portrayal of him as somewhat of a supporter of the game. This is what he had to say…
yeah that story got way more attention than i thought. i figured the gaming community would pick it up but not everyone. Anyway, I don’t think i said i supported it really, i just said i had played it out of curiosity. I even got hatemai from one guy who said i was an asshole, which i found kind of amusing and puzzling at the same time. Somehow i think he got the impression that I suppported school shootings or something. That is obviously the last thing i want to happen. I reminded him that i was actually shot at the thing. I definatley don’t support real violence, but this is a game. But, i said i had ambiguous feelings about the game and i still do. I think if you’re trrying to learn more backgrond detail by playing this game, why not? But also i guess there are people out there who think maybe there might be a fringe audience out there that would play this game and it would somehow inspire them. I don’t really think thats the case. But, if that was even remotely true than that would be the disgusting part. I’m stil a little disturbed, however, about the “Brave Boys” thing though, that was going a little too far. i would hope that nobody really thinks that, that woudl be upsetting. But, im not going to say the guy should burn in hell for it or whatever.
I dont know why media types acted like i gave it a thumbs up, i guess thats the media for you.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
AG wants MySpace.com to make Web safer for kids:
Add Texas to the list of states whose Attorneys general want MySpace to crackdown on predators. The other states so far have been New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
AUSTIN — An investigator posing as a 13-year-old girl with a profile on MySpace.com helped officers nab a man for the second time in five months on charges that he was using the Internet to solicit sex from a minor.
The second arrest of John David Payne prompted Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to urge MySpace and other social networking Web sites to increase efforts to protect children and teenagers from explicit images and sexual solicitations.
“This shows how aggressive and how dangerous these child predators are,” Abbott said Monday at a summit he hosted to discuss online criminal activity. “Even a one-time law enforcement arrest is not going to stop predators like this.”
About 300 government officials, law enforcement officers and representatives from technology companies attended the summit to talk about ways to make the Internet safer.
Payne was arrested in December after he arrived in Bastrop for an alleged sexual rendezvous with what he thought was an underage teen he met on the Internet.
While he was awaiting trial, he was arrested again May 10, after he allegedly engaged in graphic sexual conversation with an investigator posing as a teen on MySpace. He also solicited sex from a different investigator posing as another girl in a separate chat room.
A spokeswoman for Abbott said their office has had MySpace profiles for some time, but Payne’s arrest was one of the first to stem from that site.
Abbott said Web sites like MySpace, a social networking hub with more 72 million members, should make it harder to find profiles belonging to underage youth and should use software that automatically scans all uploaded photographic images and blocks those that are pornographic.
A spokesman for Myspace did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has been working with MySpace to identify ways to make it more difficult for young people to put up too much information about themselves, said Michelle Collins, director of the center’s exploited children unit.
The center also has partnered with the site for a campaign to teach teenagers how to protect themselves online.
“There isn’t any one solution that’s going to solve the problem,” she said. “It’s really going to be by joining collective forces that we can have the biggest impact.”
At least they’re not making ridiculous demands like Massachusetts.
Suspect in attack has teen visitor:
Samson Shelton, the Missouri gym teacher who was arrested for breaking the neck of 17-year-old student Ashley Reeves and leaving her to die in the woods, hasn’t learned his lesson. Apparently, the local girls haven’t either…
SMITHTON – Just a few hours after being released Monday from the St. Clair County Jail, Samson “Sam” R. Shelton pleaded on the telephone with a teenage girlfriend to visit him at his mother’s house, where he is confined until trial.
Tuesday, the 18-year-old Columbia girl visited Shelton at the house just south of Smithton, said Lt. Steve Johnson, lead investigator for the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department. Shelton is charged with kidnapping and attempting to murder 17-year-old Ashley Reeves of Millstadt.
The Columbia girl’s parents called the sheriff’s department to complain, Johnson said. They were told their daughter’s visit to Shelton’s mother’s home did not violate conditions of the $80,000 bond set by St. Clair County Circuit Judge John Baricevic.
“It is not a violation, but it is certainly a concern,” Johnson said. “The parents called us, and they were worried.”
Besides being confined to his mother’s home, Shelton must wear an electronic monitoring anklet, Baricevic ordered.
Why this scumbag is out on bail is beyond me anyway. And ladies, if a man confesses to breaking a girl’s neck, it’s probably a good idea not to go to his house.
Shelton’s MySpace has since been removed.