TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Author: Trench Reynolds

  • More on the MySpace database

    More on the MySpace database

    Can MySpace Protect Its People?:

    This is basically an article from Internet News about MySpace’s declaration of their sexual offender database and how they’re going to keep sex offenders off MySpace and how that’s not going to work…

    “We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace chief security officer, said in a statement. The database is a “significant step to keep our members as safe as possible.”

    MySpace said Sentinal Safe resulted from talks with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. But in a statement, Blumenthal called the new measure “ineffective without age and identity verification.

    “Convicted sexual offenders” can swiftly circumvent these protections by using fake names,” he said. The tobacco and alcohol industries already employ age and identity verification on the Internet, he added.

    Nigam said a gap will still remain in the ability to keep sex offenders off social-networking sites until legislation is passed forcing convicted offenders to use registered e-mail addresses.

    How can you force anyone to continually use the same e-mail address? That sounds like a waste of taxpayer money to me. Just because you can legislate something doesn’t make it feasible.

    The article also quotes some really smart people…

    “If predators really want to get around [the barrier] they can easily do it,” Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, said. A blog titled MyCrimeSpace.com lists news items of adults meeting children on the social-networking site.

    Well, that’s not all I do here, but you get the point.

  • Thomas White to be tried as an adult

    Thomas White to be tried as an adult

    Seventh-grader to stand trial as adult in middle school incident:

    Thomas White will be tried as an adult. The 13-year-old who fired a MAC-90 assault rifle inside of Memorial Middle School in Joplin, Missouri has been certified by Jasper County Circuit Court Judge William Crawford to stand trial as an adult.

    Crawford said he based his decision on the seriousness of the offense and the apparent violent nature of the boy’s actions.

    Juvenile officer April Foulkes testified Wednesday that she recommended certification of White to stand trial as an adult because if he was tried in juvenile court, he could be released within six months to a year. She said if he was prosecuted as an adult and convicted, White could be sentenced to a dual-jurisdiction program of the state and placed at a secure-care center in Montgomery City until he turns 18.

    Now let’s hear from the “He’s old enough to fire a gun but not old enough to go to prison” crowd…

    White’s lawyer, Chuck Lonardo, argued at the hearing that the boy is too young to be certified for trial as an adult. He said while treatment of the boy is needed, such treatment could best be accomplished by adjudicating him as a juvenile.

    He also said the court could order that White be kept in custody until he turned 18.

    Lonardo called clinical psychologist Kevin Whisman to testify about a psychological evaluation of the boy that he conducted after the incident. Whisman said in the weeks leading up to the shooting, White was feeling increased pressure to improve his grades, mostly coming from his father, who the boy said had threatened to beat him with a belt if his grades did not improve.

    As we know now the father is no prize either but suck it up, kid. My dad threatened me with a belt all the time, and I was bullied too. But just because your dad and other kids at school are assclowns, it’s no reason to kill other people. Now you’ve basically thrown your life away, and you must be held responsible for your actions.

  • Teenybopper Killa’s lawyer says charges are an overreaction

    Teenybopper Killa’s lawyer says charges are an overreaction

    Lawyer: Threat charges ‘overreaction’:

    Remember Darren Thompson? He’s the self-proclaimed “teenybopper killa” who made threatening remarks on a fan site for teen celebrity Jesse McCartney. Well, in true criminal defense attorney fashion, his attorney is claiming that the charges against his client are an ‘overreaction’…

    Mr. Thompson appeared in court yesterday for a bail hearing with his lawyer, Anthony M. Salerno. Mr. Salerno said he appealed the bail amount and wants it reduced, because the case is an “overreaction and over-prosecution.”

    “After my initial review of the preliminary evidence, I would categorize this as a situation where it’s more about attention versus intention,” Mr. Salerno said. “He (Mr. Thompson) certainly got attention for it, but not the way he was seeking.”

    Mr. Thompson did not post threats to anyone in particular, Mr. Salerno said, and his Web postings were likely a call for attention. Mr. Thompson was not charged with threatening to commit a crime, which is a charge police can file if someone makes a verbal threat to kill or harm another person.

    “I assert that there is a strong difference and a bright line between intentions and someone looking for attention. There is absolutely no evidence that he harbored any specific intentions,” Mr. Salerno said. “I would not consider him dangerous to the point where he should be held on excessive bail.”

    Mr. Thompson has no prior record. Mr. Salerno would not allow his client to be subjected to a mental health evaluation, which was discussed at the initial hearing Friday. “I wouldn’t let them do that because at this time, no mental health defense has been raised,” Mr. Salerno said.

    Let me refresh your memory on some of Mr. Thompson’s threats…

    He even gives out his Whitehall Circle address and warns that he’ll be “waiting” with his SKS assault rifle, the same type of gun police confiscated from his home.

    “This anger I have towards the types of people I hate is only gonna get more intense as I get older,” he writes. “So yeah, I think I will hurt and kill at least one disgusting preppy teenybopper before the decade is over. I can only hope. Watch, I’ll be the guy at the top of the clock tower.”

    Just because a name wasn’t used in the threat doesn’t mean that Thompson isn’t a danger to himself and others.

    And let’s not forget the illegal weapons in his possession…

    Police searching Mr. Thompson’s bedroom closet Thursday recovered an SKS 7.62 x 39 mm rifle, 22 rounds of ammunition, and a nail-studded baseball bat Mr. Thompson called the “ugly stick,” according to court records.

    Mr. Thompson works at the Beechwood Hotel, according to court records. During the police interview, Mr. Thompson said he purchased the assault rifle for $200 from a friend at work, and the ammunition for it while on a hunting trip in Vermont in late October.

    And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his mutant tendencies…

    Police also recovered a diary from his bedroom in which he wrote of his admiration for Eric Harris, one of the two high school students involved in the Columbine High School massacre in Jefferson County, Colo., on April 20, 1999.

    When state and Shrewsbury police interviewed Mr. Thompson, he allegedly told state Trooper Matthew D. Murphy that he was picked on in elementary school and high school.

    Overreaction? Hardly. As a matter of fact, I believe the judge under-reacted by setting Thompson’s bail at $25,000.

  • New Jersey calls out the usual suspects

    New Jersey calls out the usual suspects

    Keep kids’ photos off Web sites, state attorney general warns:

    The New Jersey State Attorney General thinks pictures are the problem…

    The playground isn’t the only place parents should watch over their children, state Attorney General Stuart Rabner says.

    Rabner said Web sites that let users put their picture online are unsafe and the owners of those sites should adopt a policy to make it easier for people to report harassment and crime online. He said he is mainly concerned with social networking sites, sites made up of picture profiles and descriptions of children and adult users who befriend each other and comment on each other’s pages.

    Rabner asked the chief financial officers of 10 social networking Web sites, such as Myspace, Xanga and Facebook, to consider installing a link that would appear on every page of their site, on which users could click if they felt bothered by another person.

    This link would alert not only site officials but also law enforcement officers in order to catch criminal activity, such as sexual harassment, he said.

    In a Nov. 16 letter to Web site owners, Raber expressed the need for such a policy.

    “The use of your service for illegal activity, and as a medium through which child predators identify, learn about and contact potential victims, poses a serious threat to the public safety of some of our most vulnerable citizens and creates significant risks for the positive reputation and continued operations of your business,” Rabner said.

    “I believe these goals can best be accomplished by making it easier for users to identify and report suspicious activity and illegal content, such as child pornography.”

    Yeah, that won’t cause a plethora of false alarms.

    I noticed that nowhere in his letter did Attorney General Rabner call for better parenting.

  • MySpace to block sex offenders

    MySpace to block sex offenders

    MySpace tool to help block sex offenders:

    MySpace, the popular online hangout that has drawn complaints about sexual predators and other dangers to teens, said Tuesday it will develop technologies to help block convicted sex offenders.

    MySpace is partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding to build a database containing names, physical descriptions and other identifiable details on sex offenders in the United States. The News Corp. site, however, stopped short of adopting Sentinel’s technology for verifying the ages and identities of its users.

    The database, to be called Sentinel Safe, “will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, said in a statement.

    This is a major leap forward in the right direction in my opinion. However, I hope the database doesn’t return any false positives. Not only that, but that still doesn’t do anything to prevent first time offenders.

  • Man forces teen to expose herself with threats of violence

    Man forces teen to expose herself with threats of violence

    Cops: Teen coerced to expose herself over Web:

    BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – A 25-year-old man faces federal charges after police said he threatened a young teenage girl and coerced her into using a Web camera to take explicit images that he later posted on the online social network Myspace.com.

    Shaun Brown was arrested and arraigned Monday in federal court on charges that he coerced a minor to engage in a sexual act and that he coerced a minor over the Internet.

    Brown met the 13-year-old girl, who lives in Ohio, in an online chat room for cheerleaders, according to court documents.

    Police said he pursued her with sexually explicit instant messages and threatened to harm her and her family if she didn’t expose herself via the Web cam.

    The girl complied and didn’t tell her parents until after she found the images on Myspace.com. Brown opened an account on the social networking site in the teenager’s name and posted an image of the girl exposing herself and included her name and address, according to court documents.

    What a sick son of a bitch.

    I was unable to find a MySpace for Brown.

    Thanks to Mandy for the tip.

  • Like father like son

    Like father like son

    Joplin middle-school student could stand trial as adult:

    Authorities in Joplin, Missouri, are seeking to have Thomas White tried as an adult. White is the 13-year-old who brought a MAC-90 assault weapon to Memorial Middle School and fired a round into the ceiling. The gun luckily jammed before any bloodshed could occur.

    In related news, White’s father, Gregory, has pleaded guilty today to firearm possession. Since the elder White is a convicted felon, he is not permitted to own firearms. He’s looking at a maximum of 10 years and a possible $250,000 fine.

  • DA not worried about sealed records

    DA not worried about sealed records

    D-A says she won’t appeal judge’s ruling regarding school records:

    Like I theorized last week, Sauk County District Attorney Pat Barrett said that her case against Eric Mainshock will not be affected by the recent ruling that Hainstock’s school records will be sealed…

    Barrett says she sought the boy’s school records as a matter of routine in an investigation of a crime at a school that involved school personnel. But she says she doesn’t anticipate needing the records to prosecute the case, given the number of witnesses and some admissions by the defendant.

    For those of you just joining us, Eric Hainstock shot and killed Weston High School principal John Klang in front of witnesses.

    Hopefully, prosecuting Hainstock will be a slam dunk.

  • 23-year-old chef arrested for violent threats and guns

    23-year-old chef arrested for violent threats and guns

    Web hater had preps in sights: Threats led to gun bust:

    This is a bizarre one. A 23-year-old banquet chef by the name of Darren Thompson was arrested in Shrewsbury, Mass. on Thursday for making threatening comments online and having stockpiled weapons like an AK-47. It’s the targets of his threats that are unusual.

    In shockingly graphic online postings, Thompson railed against “mind numbing” pop culture and teens who shop at preppy stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch. He bragged he would one day be “on the news” for a killing spree.

    “I’d love to kidnap a teenybopper and cut her up real good before blowing her head off with a shotgun loaded with buckshot,” he wrote in a posting Monday. “That’s what they deserve.”

    State police were tipped off to Thompson by someone who read his hatred-filled postings on a fan bulletin board for teen pop star Jesse McCartney.

    Why am I writing about this story? This is why…

    A Shrewsbury chef who dubbed himself the “teenybopper killa” and cited Columbine killer Eric Harris as an inspiration was nabbed with a stash of weapons after making online threats to snuff out “preppy” teens, authorities said.

    Police said they also found a journal in Thompson’s bedroom that referenced Eric Harris, one of two teen outcasts who killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999.

    “Thompson told me that he respected Harris for what he did because Thompson himself was picked on in elementary school and high school,” state Trooper Matthew Murphy wrote in court papers.

    This continues a disturbing trend of pathetic, morally deficient losers who can’t seem to let go of their high school years. Not unlike Kimveer Gill or Sebastian Bosse. You may say pathetic morally deficient loser is a little harsh. To you, I say this…

    Police served a search warrant Thursday night and arrested Thompson at the Shrewsbury home where he lives with his parents.

    Some more of his ranting…

    In a bio on the Internet Movie Database site, he writes of the teen celebs: “They all suck, and don’t deserve the fame they have. Anyone who supports preppy teenyboppers is a (expletive) moron with the intelligence of bird (expletive), and I wish I could meet you so I could smash you in the face and break your (expletive) arms.”

    His most violent tirades are saved for teenage girls, some of whom he urges to come to his Shrewsbury home to “fight” him.

    “And what the (expletive) does everybody have against a guy hitting a chick? What do girls expect? To be unharmed because of their gender? That’s a (expletive) rip off,” he writes.

    He even gives out his Whitehall Circle address and warns that he’ll be “waiting” with his SKS assault rifle, the same type of gun police confiscated from his home.

    “This anger I have towards the types of people I hate is only gonna get more intense as I get older,” he writes. “So yeah, I think I will hurt and kill at least one disgusting preppy teenybopper before the decade is over. I can only hope. Watch, I’ll be the guy at the top of the clock tower.”

    And here are even more tirades of his from the Jesse McCartney fan site.

    So he’s been out of high school for at least 4 years. He’s working as a banquet chef, which is probably a lot better than a lot of his class is doing. And yet, this mutant still rages on about “preps” and “teenyboppers”.

    Once you get into the real world, there are no more preps and other cliques. There are only other people who you have to cope with in daily life. People like Thompson are no better than the people who allegedly bullied him. Still stuck in a high school mentality. And what did all his hate and thoughts of violence get him? Probably a long stay in prison, where he’ll wish he was still being bullied in high school.

  • Sebastian Bosse’s diary

    Sebastian Bosse’s diary

    Thanks to an anonymous German reader, we have a link to Sebastian Bosse’s diary.

    My German skills are basically non-existent, but I do recognize at least one phrase. On the entry dated 26.09.2006, which is September 26th for us non-Europeans, he wrote the phrase ERIC HARRIS IST GOTT. It doesn’t take a genius to know that says, “Eric Harris is god”. In the same entry, he also invokes the names of Dylan Klebold, Kip Kinkel, and Kimveer Gill.

    On the following page assuming that’s from the same date is what appears to be a hit list and possibly a list of names of people to spare. From November 6th on, he writes exclusively in English. On November 17th, he states that he is “not a fucking psycho”. I beg to differ, but I’ve already expounded on that.

    On November 18th, he laments over the fact that he never had a girlfriend. Neither did I until I was almost 20, but so what? Again, it’s not a reason to shoot up a school. There is no reason to shoot up a school. Cowards like this are just trying to justify to themselves about their murderous intent. It’s not the world’s fault that you don’t have a girlfriend. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. And after I got into my mid to late 20s, I had a lot of girlfriends. So trust me, you’re not going to go your whole life without a girlfriend, and there is no woman alive out there worth killing yourself or anybody else over.

    He also makes a point that he’s not gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that, he says. He stated that he liked the character Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil video games. Almost like she’s a real person, which leads me to believe that Bosse was detached from reality. He says that’s why he named one of his guns Jill. He also says that he named his other gun after Homer Simpson’s gun. I must have missed that episode.

    Then he talks about how much he loves his family and how much he hates himself for hurting them like this. If he had loved his family so much, he wouldn’t have done what he did. He committed one of the most selfish acts a person could commit.

    He then states that he hopes the other outcasts at his school will be treated better. I can almost guarantee they won’t. Bullies and other criminals don’t care about the repercussions of their actions, so they’re probably just going to come down even harder on the outcasts. Then he says he hopes some of the outcasts will be like him and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, heroes. Like I’ve said before, none of them are heroes. People like Bosse, Harris, and Klebold are now and have always been cowards. Unable to deal with their own issues, they take the cowardly, murderous way out and make things worse for other outcasts.

    That’s not a hero.