Friday, November 30, 2007
B&S Commenter Arrested
An Oak Creek High School teacher who allegedly praised the actions of the Columbine School shooters and threatened local teachers on a Web site blog was arrested Thursday. The 46-year-old Cudahy man was arrested with the assistance of Oak Creek and Cudahy police departments after West Bend police were notified of a threatening post on Nov. 16.
The actual blog, posted at 6:50 p.m. and provided in a release by the West Bend Police Department, states: ?Looking at those teacher salary numbers in West Bend made me sick. $60,000 for a part time job were you ?work? maybe 5 hours per day and sit in the teachers lounge and smoke the rest of the time. Thanks God we won on the referendum. But whining here doesn?t stop the problem. We?ve got to get in back of the kids who have had enough of lazy, no good teachers and are fighting back. Kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold members of the Young Republicans club at Columbine. They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time! Too bad the liberals rip them; they were heroes and should be remembered that way.?
The man, who admitted to posting the message, was arrested and a search warrant was served at his home. He is in custody at the Washington County Jail and charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communication systems will be referred to the Washington County District Attorney?s office. The Cudahy man has no previous arrest record that the police department is aware of, according to a statement.
Yes, the comment in question was posted in a comment thread on B&S. Let me fill in the details?
Late on the evening of Friday, November 16th, Jed and I received an email from a detective with the West Bend Police Department asking me about the above comment. Do you remember what was happening that weekend? Yep. Gun deer season.
I saw the email at about 7:30 AM on the 17th while I was sitting in my deer stand. I promptly called the detective and consequently woke him up. He asked if we would provide the IP address of the commenter. Since I wasn?t anywhere near a computer and wouldn?t be for some time, I emailed Jed who sent the information in a matter of minutes. I guess Jed was let out of the bunker for a while.
The next week the detective called and we spoke about it. At no time did the detective even so much as hint that the proprietors of B&S were at fault. He asked us to remove the comment if we could preserve a permanent record. He also revealed that the complaint was filed by a member of the West Bend school administration.
The next thing I knew about this was when I read this news story saying that the commenter had been arrested. In case you were wondering, you are not anonymous on the internet. I have received several calls from reporters with various news organizations seeking comment. I haven?t returned any calls yet, because I wanted to write out the story in full form before somebody misquoted me.
This evening I called and spoke to the detective. He did confirm that no other evidence was found at the man?s home and that the charges are based on the comment he left here at B&S. It?s an ongoing investigation, so he couldn?t say much, but between him and some other sources, I think I have the majority of this story put together. The paperwork for the investigation was finished this afternoon and it will likely be referred to the District Attorney as soon as tonight (which probably means Monday, in reality).
What do I think?
At first blush, I think it?s a gross overreaction for a comment left on a blog. Yes, the comment was idiotic and over the top, but it hardly constitutes a direct threat to anyone. It was explained to me that it was not believed that the commenter had any intent to harm anyone, but that the mere presence of a comment appearing to condone such violence had to be punished because it might encourage someone else to engage in violence against schools. I don?t buy that argument. In fact, let?s put it in context with the commenter?s next comment on that thread.
I am NOT advcting shootng teachrs. I agree with Mark belling when he said that theese kids were pushed into doing this by the stupid union teachrs at Colmbine. belling said that to bad only one teachr got it and lots of kids. shuld have been the other way. belling hates teachrs I like belling
It appears to me that the commenter is attempting to do one of two things. Option 1: the commenter is a right wing whack job that isn?t violent, but likes to engage in outlandish rhetoric. Option 2: the commenter is a liberal who is trying to discredit conservatives by acting like option 1.
As you can see from the story, the commenter is actually a union teacher from Oak Creek, but it gets more interesting than that. The commenter was also once the president of his local teachers? union. This leads me to believe that Option 2 is the truth. This commenter is just a liberal union teacher who was trying to make conservatives look bad by pretending to be one and acting like an imbecile.
That being said, I still believe that the arrest was unwarranted. I realize that in a post-Columbine world that everyone is hypersensitive about any mention of Columbine or school shootings. But this comment was clearly just talk. When I gave the detective the IP address, I assumed that they would find him, chew him out a bit for being an idiot, and leave it alone. The fact that the West Bend Police decided to actually arrest him in the absence of any additional evidence of this guy being a threat is out of line.
I encourage the District Attorney?s office to promptly no bill this matter. Yes, we need to be concerned with statements like this and it was appropriate for the police to look into it. But once they found out that he was no threat and once the comment had been removed, thus eliminating the likelihood that the comment would encourage anyone else to commit violence, they should have dropped it.
I guess I?ll call those reporters back now?
http://www.bootsandsabers.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/bs_commenter_arrested/
