WEST WARWICK, R.I. --A seventh-grader who wrote an essay saying his perfect day would involve doing violence to President Bush is being investigated by the Secret Service.
The unidentified boy from West Warwick turned in the essay on Tuesday, and his teacher alerted school officials. The assignment was to write about what he would do on a perfect day.

Thomas M. Powers, Secret Service resident agent in charge in Providence, said the investigation is ongoing but the essay may have been a "cry for help." Threatening the president is a felony, he said.

The one-page essay also said the student wanted to kill Oprah Winfrey, hurt executives at Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart and attack a Walgreens pharmacy, police and school officials told The Providence Journal.

"His perfect day would be to see the destruction of these people," Schools Superintendent David Raiche said.

Raiche said the student felt the companies were doing inappropriate things. He said the student had been barred temporarily from coming back to school, but as a mental health rather than disciplinary precaution.

The essay did not threaten anyone at the school, and did not detail specific plans for an attack, police Detective Sgt. Fernando Araujo said.

The boy was not arrested, and authorities would not release a copy of the essay.

"He was writing a letter threatening everyone on the planet," School Board Chairman Daniel T. Burns Jr. said. "He was just mad at the world."

Steve Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said reporting the essay was an inappropriate intrusion on the student's First Amendment rights. He said it amounted to a criminalization of student thought and sends a disturbing message to other students.

"Steer away from any violent themes in writing assignments, or else run the risk of being interrogated by the police," Brown said.

Source

I can understand where they're coming from though. They know nothing about this guy, he could be influenced or turn out to be messed up.

What happened to freedom of speech? BTW your avatar is messed up. That -sharingan is it?- eye is turned the wrong way. Other than that I like it.

Heh it's supposedly an offence to threaten the president, read it . Oh and my avatar? I took that back in 04. Needed something catchy, so I took a quick shot, changed the colour of my eye and whipped on the writing. You're the first person to compliment it. Oh and it wasn't intended to be a 'sharingan' I hadn't even heard of that before you had said it.

Sorry, I'm an anime finatic. It is nice anyways.

Perhaps they should check on his home status? I wouldn't be surprised if there was something wrong there. I kinda feel bad for him, being so angry at everyone.

different cracks me up.
Anyway the secret service?? I mean come on he's like 12 right?
But the criminals do get younger these days

apparently the kid has issues

Gee, ya think?

Maybe he is just the next Stephen King, in which case we should kill him now! Before he writes anymore drivel.

I don't believe they should have called in the police and the secret service, but I do think that some alarm bells needed to be going off if they've got a twelve-year-old writing stuff like this. There have been school shootings by younger kids, after all. When a child turns in something that angry and violent he's either very troubled and it's a cry for help (as the agent said) or he's a very bright smart-a** who thought it would be funny to get people riled up.

Of course, if that second scenario is the case, he's probably wishing he *wasn't* so smart just now. I'm sure he wouldn't have counted on the secret service.

All that for a story? I wrote stuff like that cause I loved to see people squirm when I was forced to read it or have to do some story for the teacher.

better safe than sorry. What if they didnt turn him in and he comitted an act of violence. Dont get me wrong, I have my dark side too, but I never threatened to kill the president.

yeah, but I mean how many comedians out there say they wish they could just harm the president in some way...kinda odd but still, threats shouldn't be in a kids mind. he does need help.

It occurs to me that if it was written as an assigned piece of fiction then he is covered by the first ammendment. If it was an unsolicited threat then the picture changes.

Very good point.


Check... Check... Check... Damn he missed Bill Gates All that on one page - I'm impressed... Was it A4 or A5 sized? If it was A5 he probably only had the room to list the names and write "kill" before each...



I reckon Mr Chairman has it about right... Being 12 years old he probably just used his imagination and wrote it as a piece of fiction. I bet if he wrote a story about aliens doing the damage to the people involved then there would have been none of this... If you ask me the terrorists have us all ultra-paranoid to investigate a piece of pre-teen fiction in this way By all means take appropriate action of getting the kid checked over for mental health, but the SS? Is the president really that insecure??

im sure many people have said they wanted to harm the president and they never got arrested

Wonder how many 'red flags' has this kid sent up prior to his 'perfect day' essay . . the warning bells were probably ringing long before.

Does anyone know for sure how he phrased all the "threats" in his paper? Some people are immediately jumping to the conclusion that he's a very violent child and that the essay details these horrible deaths or something, but for him to write that he wants to harm all those people on a single page, he couldn't really have gone into much detail about each one, which to me signifies that this kid isn't serious at all about going through with anything he's writing. i think he just wanted attention, as negative as it may be.

Also, has any kind of evaluatoin been run on the kid? it doesn't seem to mention him doing anything like this before, so why is everyone automatically saying he's "so angry at the world" and everything?

depending on how this paper was written, to me, would decide if the kid should get in a lot of trouble or not. if it's obviously just the wierd ideas of a kid on a political streak or something, he's not worth all the ruckus.

actually, it seems to me that he's fairly informed to know of all the people and organizatoins in the world today that have several inequities. he's right there with all the grownup protestors, it seems

I stand by this statement. This did happen in America? Didn't it?
Like it or not, we can say what we want, under the proper circumstances. This reminds me in a way of all those Muslims with their panties inna bunch over the Dutch cartoons.

Heh. The Secret Service was called in? How silly.

An incident vaguely similar happened a few years back here in Kentucky. Two boys attending my current high school (I was in junior high at the time) broke into the Assisstant Principals e-mail account and wrote a threatening e-mail to Bush. According to one of my teachers, the school was in full Lock Down mode approx. an hour after this happened. About 30 minutes later, there were Secret Service Men swarming the campus (which caused quite a panic, seeing as how no one new what was going on and the first thing that came to mind was "THERE'S A BOMB IN THE SCHOOL!!").

Now, for something like that, it's completely understandable that they called in the Secret Service. But...for a 12 year old boy who was writing a paper for class credit? Come on, just send the kid to the school psychologist, pick his brain a little. He probably has quite a bit of bottled up anger that he let show through in his writing. Chances are, the only person he is a threat to is himself.

WTF dude... That's all I really got to say about that... All it was, was an essay for class... not no letter to the flippin' president... I bet alotta people would like to kill the president right now... But they're not doing that now are they? The essay was about a perfect day.... A perfect day will never exist to anyone... There will always be atleast 5 flaws in every day... Notice I say atleast... So that day will never come for him...

My thoughts exactly



I also thought it was quite a mature subject matter. This may seem totally contradictory to my previous posts on this topic, but does anyone else think that maybe it was investigated at such a level as it's unusual for a kid to have these thoughts and he may have been "fed" them by someone more dangerous? Just a thought I had while replying here I still think it was a bit OTT action in the circumstances but it may go somewhat towards explaining it.

What a deliciously devious and paranoid mind.

I LOVE it!

Moi? Ok you're right LOL

never threaten the prez. he knows nothing someone else does i mean about the aleins

there are some exceptions to the first amendment. Like threatening to kill the president. it is against the law.

And Freedom of Speech takes another leap out the window...

The kid wasn't directly threatening the President, it said in the article that the essay "did not detail specific plans for an attack". So...?

--Jon

I bet there's probably clearance levels above the president. There's probably stuff he doesn't know anything about that goes on in our government, especially anything having to do with aliens. they wouldn't release that kind of information to a person like George Bush. i think the president is mainly a figurehead for a lot of different organizations anyway (i know that's getting pretty paranoid/conspiracy theorist-y of me)

Yes FnL, I agree, but if you will, please read my original assertion back in post # 13 of this thread...

I do see your point, but how do we know if it is fiction? Regardless of the intent, it's still against the law.
If nothing else comes of this, maybe at least the boy will realize that laws are to be taken seriously.

Heh, it's pretty common with the way he makes the US look like a bunch of dumbasses sometimes and with some of his choices... grr...



It's not a breach of freedom of speech, the SS is required to investigate any reported threat, no matter the size or stupidity of the source. They are just doing their job. As far as I can tell, no punishment has come on the kid for this report he wrote.

If you all want to witch and moan about something, start at the source... the person that actually reported this act of free speech as illegal and wrong.

This kid was well within his legal rights to write his 'perfect day'. You don't at all have to like what he is writing, but the fact is, it is perfectly legal.

Well it was an assigned essay after all and he did not exclusivly single out the president for killing. Would the secret service be involved if he hadn't mentioned our leader? NO!

Does the kid need help? He probably does, this story seemed to me that it was some reach for help of some kind. But I am not a psycologist in anyway so I cannot clinically say what is running around in that kids mind.

I think it should have been handled in a diffrent way, perhaps a school counsilor should have spent time with him, if he then proved to be a possible 'Threat' to school or community then take the neccissary steps to help fix the problem.

Writing about something isn't doing something it's just writing it down. With the increase in school violence IE school shootings etc. then it should have been looked into. Just not to the immediate extreme that it had been.

Because it was assigned as fiction. What else could a "perfect day be?"


That statement, quite frankly sends chills down, up and then back down my spine.

Kratos, very good point about the fact that it is the duty of the SS (scary corelation there huh) to investigate the incident. No charges may be brought to bear against the kid. What happens in a few years when he tries to become an FBI agent, or land a federal job? Damn sure that lil incident will be sitting there waiting to bite him.

If I had to write an essay called "the Perfect Day" it probably wouldn't be released either.
But for a different reason.

It's just some messed up kid finding a wierd way to releave his anger, not a threat to the president.

Did they find "Stephen King to be a messed up kid?"
I'll bet that given the same assignment, there would be more than a few coffee cups spilled in his HS teacher's lounge as they read it.

I guess they forgot one very important word in this case 'FICTIONAL!!!'

On the plus side the kid obviously has an interest in world events...

why? Laws are in place for a reason. We laugh and nod our head at things that do not make sense to us, but laws are in place for a reason.

(Maybe he is just the next Stephen King, in which case we should kill him now! Before he writes anymore drivel.)
I love stephen King!?

I want to kill the President! And Oprah! And the Coca Cola execs!

Sits back and waits for the knock on the door

Awaits backlash from peeps who didn't get the sarcasm

Yeah right on ill help you kill Bush ( i am serious )

JOIN US
KIDS

*gets phone, dials crime stoppers for large reward money*

Be careful what you write.. remember that guy that got arrested for emailing a threat on Pres. Bush's life last year.....

didn't you notice the bold lettering and what it stands for

Oh, whatever! I could write ten thousand poems about suicide, but I'm still not gonna go it.