Student arrested for making a map of his school? WTF?

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In a joystiq article posted today:

Student arrested for making map of his school

A Chinese student was removed from Clements High School in Fort Bend, Texas after parents complained he had re-created the school grounds in a game and uploaded the map for his friends to play. The boy was placed in the district's alternate education school and later arrested, as the police considered him a "terroristic threat". The Chinese community and the boy's mother have rallied behind him, saying the school has acted too harshly in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. No charges were filed, though the boy won't be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies.

We don't have to point out how ridiculous this is to our Joystiq readers. How many people have created familiar surroundings using in-game editors? We once made a partial re-creation of our college in Dr. Lunatic Supreme With Cheese. Good thing nobody found out, otherwise we'd be blogging from a soft and squishy padded room right now.
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All I have to say is wow. A bit paranoid much? I mean in reality, was this kid even considered a threat before he even did this? and besides, if he got in trouble for making it, wouldn't the other kids get in trouble too for participating in it by playing on the map? This is a bit obsurd to me.

Link to the actual article here.
 
Holy fucking shit.

I remember playing those "school shooting spree" games for StarCraft.


What game did he make this for?
 
How weird, that's 4 young Asian males that have made the news recently dealing with school and/or guns. They never made the news before...

Cho was the first.
 
[quote name='dallow']How weird, that's 4 young Asian males that have made the news recently dealing with school and/or guns. They never made the news before...

Cho was the first.[/quote]

that is quite a coincedence. now the real question is,

did he get arrested because he made a map of the school for a game,

or is it because he's asian?
 
[quote name='SL4IN']that is quite a coincedence. now the real question is,

did he get arrested because he made a map of the school for a game,

or is it because he's asian?[/QUOTE]

Shi...t I better watch my ass from now on ^___^
 
I wonder if this has anything to do with the rumors that Eric (gunman @ Columbine) created a stage of Columbine in Doom?
 
[quote name='spoo']I wonder if this has anything to do with the rumors that Eric (gunman @ Columbine) created a stage of Columbine in Doom?[/quote]

I heard about that but wasn't sure if it was just a rumor. did he really create his school in doom?
 
[quote name='SL4IN']I heard about that but wasn't sure if it was just a rumor. did he really create his school in doom?[/QUOTE]
Snopes did an article about it, and the rumor is considered to be false. While they did make Doom maps, none of the maps resembled the school's layout.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/doom.asp
 
I didn't think the CS mapmaker in the original article was arrested, just moved to a different "special" school.

I dunno, even if he had been working on it for awhile, he probably should've kept it on the DL for a couple months. That's not really the sort of attention you want to bring to yourself at the moment.
 
This was on my local news last night. They also said the police confiscated five 'ornamental' swords after doing a search of his room.
 
As our final BS senior project in our high school engineering class, we modeled our school in AutoCAD and other Autodesk software. A kid was about to use the model to turn it into a map for a game, but our teacher didn't let him.
 
[quote name='ananag112']As our final BS senior project in our high school engineering class, we modeled our school in AutoCAD and other Autodesk software. A kid was about to use the model to turn it into a map for a game, but our teacher didn't let him.[/quote]My AutoCAD/TurboCAD class used to just look at hardcore porn....
 
All the parents need to do is play the race card and this will all go away. The last thing the police and school officials want is to be branded racists.
 
[quote name='VanillaGorilla']My AutoCAD/TurboCAD class used to just look at hardcore porn....[/quote]

Haha, ditto actually.
 
[quote name='Cosmo']This was on my local news last night. They also said the police confiscated five 'ornamental' swords after doing a search of his room.[/QUOTE]
I loved Kotaku's quip about the decorative swords:
[quote name='Kotaku']Oh wait, it was completely founded. He had swords. Thank god we stopped him before he went medieval.[/quote]
Of course, this was before the swords were found to be most likely decorative. Also, check out the link to the article in the local newspaper, the comments are also pretty funny with the usual batch of spinsters.

[quote name='daphatty']All the parents need to do is play the race card and this will all go away. The last thing the police and school officials want is to be branded racists.[/QUOTE]
It doesn't seem to be making much of a difference right now. It seems that the school board is too busy hiding, since a majority of the school board (including the president) didn't show up to a meeting concerning this issue. And that's what I hate most about this. I don't mind the police search, but what I do mind is the fact that the school sent the kid, who's apparently an honor student without any psychological problems, to what's essentially a prison school, and the school board's members, rather than tackling the issue head-on, are too busy being ostriches, just to save face for the next school board elections.

Of course, he's a senior, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to try to delay this until after graduation time at the school or election time at the school board, then hope that the parents will drop the case.
 
[quote name='daphatty']All the parents need to do is play the race card and this will all go away. The last thing the police and school officials want is to be branded racists.[/quote]

Exactly. Or call the ACLU. They love that kind of stuff.
 
[quote name='daphatty']All the parents need to do is play the race card and this will all go away. The last thing the police and school officials want is to be branded racists.[/QUOTE]
Yeah...but this happened in Texas :p
 
Eh, just an example of a kid being stupid at the wrong time. What's funny is that people get upset over the school overreacting, and would be even more upset if this kid did something a month form now and the school hadn't done anything about this. The schools are in a lose-lose situation. I don't envy them, even if this does seem a bit overboard at first.
 
The rendered pics are pretty good... Have some potential of a good game. It's just plain sad and dumb, but it happened, tsk tsk tsk... Not allowing the kid to participate in the graduation ceremony? Man, i don't know what to say about that... Hell, if you're Asian and you took pics of the school's interior (say Photography class), you're in trouble? WTF?
 
[quote name='thespillcanvas']Some screens of the map: Link.

Quite amazing.[/quote]

after looking at those, he had to have been working on them for a few months.
 
elwood, why is this a kid being "stupid" at the wrong time? Why is it stupid to make a map of somewhere you've been? Saying your taking a bomb on a plane is dumb. Saying you want to kill the President is dumb. I don't see how this qualifies in that category.

I don't blame the school here. Their administrators are put in a horrible position. If they do something, they are overreacting. If they don't and something were to happen, watch out, lawsuits a plenty.

Sadly, this is one of those situations where reactions are way out of whack with reality. We need a correction here. Because of that (I can't believe I'm going to say this), I'm hoping this kid ultimately sues the school district for money. Only if they pay out a large sum of cash will anyone take any future heed.
 
[quote name='lordxixor101']elwood, why is this a kid being "stupid" at the wrong time?[/quote]
Agreed. For all we know, the kid just has a penchant for making maps of familiar places in an easy-to-use 3D engine. It's unlikely, but possible, that it has nothing to do with shooting games. Maybe he saw the Tower of Terror map that was making the rounds last month and was inspired to try his hand.
 
[quote name='lordxixor101']elwood, why is this a kid being "stupid" at the wrong time? Why is it stupid to make a map of somewhere you've been? Saying your taking a bomb on a plane is dumb. Saying you want to kill the President is dumb. I don't see how this qualifies in that category.[/quote]
Not a very good idea to be posting pictures online, or bragging to your friends about a map you're making of your high school for a shooting game a month after the worst school shooting in history. So yeah, he was being dumb at the wrong time. He may very well have been working on this for the past six months, but he should have shelved it, or not shown it to anyone for a while. Common sense should have told him that, but unfortunately common sense doesn't play much a part in a 17 year old's day to day life, which is understandable. He's probably not a bad kid, but he was being kind of dumb.

Because of that (I can't believe I'm going to say this), I'm hoping this kid ultimately sues the school district for money. Only if they pay out a large sum of cash will anyone take any future heed.
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This will solve nothing, and will actually only make things worse. Why do you think VT did nothing about Cho? Fear of lawsuits. It's why most schools do nothing about troubled kids. If they try, they get sued. If the kid then does something, they get sued. This kid's rights weren't violated. He was making a map of his high school for a FPS less than a month after the worst school shooting in history. The school had no other choice on how to react. Your solution of suing them will only ensure that schools have no idea how to respond and help troubled kids.

[quote name='Vegan']Agreed. For all we know, the kid just has a penchant for making maps of familiar places in an easy-to-use 3D engine. It's unlikely, but possible, that it has nothing to do with shooting games. Maybe he saw the Tower of Terror map that was making the rounds last month and was inspired to try his hand.[/QUOTE]
This is fine, but just rest assured that doing so can get you in trouble. Saying it isn't fair doesn't do much to correct this. If I were managing Disney World and discovered one of my workers had designed a Halo map of the Tower of Terror, I would be interested in that person. I would have someone look into them. Same thing with this kid. Unfortunately, the people in charge are caught between a rock and a hard place. The above poster says he should sue, which is exactly the reason they are acting.

If you're a kid in school right now, don't make any jokes, maps, etc. that could look like planning. Doesn't mean it's fair, but it is life.
 
[quote name='daphatty']All the parents need to do is play the race card and this will all go away. The last thing the police and school officials want is to be branded racists.[/QUOTE]
Race card only works if you're black.
 
What the hell law did he violate? Copyright infringement on the building? Freedom of speech! The amount of stuff the government can pull on you is fucking retarded.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']What the hell law did he violate? Copyright infringement on the building? Freedom of speech! The amount of stuff the government can pull on you is fucking retarded.[/QUOTE]

Yes these post 9-11 days everything is fucked up. When a new prez gets elected hopefully everything works out for the better. The next 8 years of presidency after bush will be nothing but fixing his mistakes.
 
[quote name='Graystone']Yes these post 9-11 days everything is fucked up. When a new prez gets elected hopefully everything works out for the better. The next 8 years of presidency after bush will be nothing but fixing his mistakes.[/quote]

LAWLS, i see we have an optimist
 
I often thought how cool my "campus" (what they call it) at work would be as a map. There's actually a lot of interesting design if someone would translate it correctly to a map.
Now I know not to do that.
 
Should he have gotten in trouble for doing this? No

Should we be surprised that it happened? No x 2. It's a hot-button issue right now. Actually 2 hot-button issues: violent video games and potential school violence.

I personally prefer playing FPSs in real-world settings, and if I could I'd build a map based on places I know. Does that mean I want to shoot up my apartment or the local mall? Not in the least.

But we're going to have to get used to Big Brother trying to ruin all our fun, so long as it could be twisted and deformed into being somewhat of a danger. Funny how the powers that be can go from ignoring a psychopathic college student to cracking down on a kid showing some digital artistic skill. From one extreme -- not giving a damn -- to another -- blowing things waaaaay out of proportion.
 
[quote name='daphatty']All the parents need to do is play the race card and this will all go away. The last thing the police and school officials want is to be branded racists.[/QUOTE]

That's pretty much what they are.

This whole thing is rediculous. If I was that kid or his parents, I'd sue the living hell out of the school, police, pretty much anyone behind this.
 
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