Write a Story, Go to Jail

wired news ^ | Aug. 22, 2003 | Kim Zetter

[freepatriot32]

Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story on a school computer. He copied the file to another computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and then promptly got arrested.

[freepatriot32]

"I didn't know I could be charged with a felony for writing a story," he said.

Neither did a lot of people .Welcome to the fatherland stay in between the yellow lines walk single file and salute your superiors or you will be shot

School districts in this country view children the same way george bush views al quada and it needs to stop now. If any child shows the least bit of creativity they drug it out of them with riddilin so they will sit still long enough for the D.A.R.E. officers to come in and tell them how bad drugs are. Then they can be more easily brainwashed into believing that thier existence is bad for the enviroment and is just as evil as cutting down a tree or endangering the life of a snail darter and dung beetle.The ones that slip through the cracks and remain imaginitive are sent to jail and expelled because a child with an imagination cant be brainwashed as easily and is therefore an immediate threat to the power structure of the public schools and must be exterminated with extreme prejudice.

homeschool your children now before they are destroyed by the goverment

[Prodigal Son]

Jeez. If I were I student now and I wrote the same stories and poems I had written when I was in HS I'd be in jail for life.

[jmc813]

But authorities said the story Robertson wrote was sufficient to charge him under an Oklahoma state statute, which was passed in the wake of school shootings across the country in the last few years.

There is NOTHING worse than reactionary policy making.

[Orangedog]

...they drug it out of them with riddilin so they will sit still long enough for the D.A.R.E. officers to come in and tell them how bad drugs are.

D.A.R.E. has to be the biggest waste of money, narc on your parents program to date. When I was in school, no one took it seriously. In fact, we the typical mindset was that D.A.R.E. stood for Drugs Are Really Eaxpensive.

[Doctor Stochastic]

If it only saves One Children.

[Oorang]

School districts in this country view children...

What you said is so true and quite a sad state of affairs. Homeschooling, when possible, is defiantly the way to go. The "Ritalin rage" makes my blood boil.

This story also reminds me of the feds harassing John Ross after he wrote/published "Unintended Consequences".

[Dead Corpse]

When I was in school, the DARE kids where the ones the geeks got to pick on.

[cake_crumb]

"Brian Robertson was just months away from graduation at Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, last year when he found the beginnings of what he thought was a short story on a school computer. He copied the file to another computer, added some paragraphs to the initial text and then promptly got arrested."

So he plagiarized some paragraphs and added others to make a story, which outlined an armed invasion of his school. What did the original paragraphs say? What did his additions say?

I agree this statute is paranoid stupidity. The kid might not be guilty of planning an armed invasion, but he IS guilty of plagiarism, which makes me suspect the facts vs agenda of this article from beginning to end.

[Prodigal Son]

How much money did he make on it? We used to have English composition teachers who would give us similar assignments- take an innocuous paragraph or sentence and continue creatively. Sounds like a form of parody. If he didn't intend to make money off it and was just having fun I think plagiarism is a bit of a stretch. It's no different than making up new words to a song but keeping the tune or the chorus. Just fun.

[Clemenza]

When I wrote a story about a snowman who came to life and killed all the kids at school, my mother was called in to defend me, as the educrats told her that I should be sent to s school for "disturbed" children. I've hated public schools ever since.

[moyden2000]

"There's no way this law can be tested until they use (it) as a tool for prosecution, and someone like Brian stands up and fights the law."

So the prosecutor admits that he is destroying a life and a family, emotionally and financially, simply to test a law.

Sheer brutality and arrogance.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Blah, blah, blah.

[ActionNewsBill]

Blah, blah, blah.

Very pithy and intelligent comment. Care to elaborate?

[ActionNewsBill]

Robertson says the style of the writing set the tone for what he penned next. "The first paragraph was written in a militaristic style, so I got my mind set in a militaristic style and I just went from there," he said.

When I was in school, the teachers would praise and encourage creativity such as this young man exhibited. Now they are thrown in jail?

[ladylib]

Maybe if the kid is cleared the parents can bring a suit against the prosecutor for malicious prosecution. Seems he feels this can advance his career.

Public schools today are the pits. Idiots with idiotic ideas and idiotic policies (zero tolerance for one).

Can someone please tell me what is so attractive about public schools besides "free" babysitting?

[joesnuffy]

we need an office
Of Pre-Crime ..should be under Homieland Security

[ZviTheWise]

"Assistant District Attorney Richard Sitzman said ..."I wish I hadn't been the first to file a charge under this statute.... It has caused me problems analytically from the day I first read it."

Apparently, the devil made the prosecutor do it.

[GhostofWCooper]

Better head for the hills, Mr. Rabble-rouser. You be guilty of creative writing!!

[ladylib]

I hope it ruins the jerk's career.

[GSWarrior]

One of the extremely rare moments when the ACLU is on the right side of an issue.