Free Republic

Just days after multiple news outlets reported the story of a Texas teen jailed for making a sarcastic threat online, a Mississippi mother facing a nearly identical situation gave an exclusive interview to The Daily Caller News Foundation about her son’s lengthy incarceration. Josh Pillault was arrested last October for threatening to kill people and destroy buildings. At the time of his arrest, he was 19-years-old, and an avid video game player. The threats were made while he was playing “Runescape,” an online multiplayer fantasy game. Another player began antagonizing him, and eventually told him to kill himself. Irritated, Pillault...

Grisly new details emerged in the story of the ongoing imprisonment of Justin Carter, who racked up months in jail for making sarcastic, violent threats after playing an online video game. Carter has been beaten up multiple times while in jail in Comal County, Texas, according to NPR. He is now on suicide watch. “This was his first incarceration, his first charge, and without getting into the really nasty details, he has had concussions, he has had black eyes,” said Jack Carter, Justin’s father, in a statement. Carter is one of two teenagers imprisoned for months for the crime of...

Texas teenager who has been in jail since March faces an eight-year prison sentence because of a threatening joke he made while playing an online video game. In February, Justin Carter was playing “League of Legends” — an online, multiplayer fantasy game — when another player wrote a comment calling him insane. Carter’s response, which he now deeply regrets, was intended as joke.