Apparently, Creative Writing is a Felony in Kentucky
William Poole, age 18 and a junior at George Rogers Clark High School, was arrested last week after writing a short story about zombies overrunning a high school. His own grandparents called the authorities after reading the unfinished story, which Poole claims was an in-progress assignment for English class. The student has been charged with “terroristic threatening” of teachers and fellow students.
Such a ridiculous charge is sure to get laughed out of court, right? Not in the post-Columbine, post-9/11 Age of Paranoia! The judge in the case actually raised Poole’s bail from one to five thousand dollars because of the “seriousness” of the charge.
You know, I’m glad to see that the authorities in Winchester and Clark County, KY take the zombie threat seriously rather than burying their heads in the sand like so many other authorities. I hope that they’re conducting research and contacting the proper authorities, just in case Poole has an unknown accomplice still intent on unleashing this undead menace on the high school!
Jesus… and Southerners wonder why people laugh at them. (Addendum: Yes, I know that not all Southerners are morons.)
(Props: Stand in the Place where You Blog)
Why have I heard so little about htis case. I think the significance of this is being lost on people. This is huge. A completel siphoning of creativity and rights at the basest and youngest level. This is a way to show students that NO ounce of creativity or rebellion will be tolerated. Take em out before they can react at all. It is a sign that society has gone completely insane.
Comment by Tom Stevens — March 3, 2005 @ 6:23 am
You won’t get any arguments here, Tom.
For more unsettling news of the same sort, you might want to check out Our Horrible Children or NeoFlux, both written by the same man. I don’t agree with all of the author’s politics, but he’s dead-on when it comes to the stupidity of “Zero-Tolerance” school disciplinary policies.
Comment by Adam M. — March 3, 2005 @ 8:02 am
I’ve been following this story for a few days. Thanks to a commenter on my own blog, I’ve tracked down the perspective of a student at the high school involved. The poster’s handle is “Icarus.” And Icarus has a very different perspective on matters.
The former debate coach in me wants to tear apart the four assertions Icarus makes. What the frell, let’s indulge that whim, shall we?
(a) Poole’s story about the journal material changed (first it was an assignment for vocational school, then an English assignment — except, says the source, Poole doesn’t have an English class this term).
1) We only have Icarus’ word that the story changed, as (s)he is the only person stating that the writings were written for anything other than an English class.
2) Even if Poole doesn’t have an English class this semester, why must the story have been written recently? It could have been written for a class previous semester.
(b) The source also claims that Poole has previously been in trouble for fighting at school,
1) Poole is stated to be an 18 year-old junior. He may have poor grades. He may be a disciplinary problem. But these are suggestive, not conclusive. We can’t leap from them to the conclusion that fighting at school is an automatic step toward terrorism, because…
2) It’s non-unique. Many kids get in trouble for fighting at school. Hell, I threw a punch in a wiffle ball game back in ninth-grade, and that’s about as trivial a reason for throwing a punch as you can get.
(c) that the written material included detailed information on the real high school’s security camera system,
I lived in Kentucky for ten months. No, I would rather not talk about the experience. In this case, though, I will.
ABC broadcast Amerika in February 1987, if memory serves. I remember watching it, the story of how the Soviet Union conquered the United States, broke the nation down into smaller parts, and how people reacted to the changes in life that came about because of that.
I don’t remember it very well. I do remember that I thought it had some interesting ideas.
Frankly, Amerika was more interesting than my classes, and I would spend hours doodling ideas in class. If the Soviets attacked Barbourville, where would be the best place to set up a redoubt? What about rigging recoilless howitzers? Would it make sense to hole up in the high school? I filled a notebook with nonsense like that. Was I planning a high school takeover? Was I mapping out the school? No, it just happened that Barbourville City School happened to be the one building in town other than my house with which I had any familiarity, so it naturally figured into my plans.
I would be willing to bet that for William Poole, George Rogers Clark High School has the same familiarity. It’s what he knows, and it’s so often said, “Write what you know” that it would make sense that he would use the school, even anonymously.
(d) and that Poole’s sister has read the material and doesn’t consider it fiction.
If, as the reports indicate, what Poole wrote wasn’t a story but notes toward a story, it wouldn’t necessarily be fiction. Or at least, not obvious as fiction.
I’m a writer, with a published novella and short story under the belt. Different writers have different working styles. Some of my working notes look completely unlike anything with narrative or character. One short story for the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds contest had five pages of notes on the physics of engaging the warp drive within a Type-III Dyson Sphere. Tell me that someone reading that and not knowing what it was for would have any frelling idea what I was on about.
If Poole works in a similar manner, his notes may have looked like one thing when they were actually something very different.
I’m not saying that Icarus is wrong in any of the assertions made, but reasonable arguments against each of them can be made. Indeed, Icarus could be right on everything. The trouble is, I find the idea of a student being arrested for writing a story about zombies to be completely credible. It sounds fantastic. It sounds impossible. And yet, in these Orwellian days it sounds all too plausible.
Comment by Allyn — March 3, 2005 @ 1:57 pm
Allyn, thanks for the excellent comment.
I went to the post on Zero Intelligence and read the comments left by “Icarus” for myself.
Icarus doesn’t write like 90% of high school students. “Heretofore”? “Perhaps this might illuminate matters”? He also talks about high school as though he is outside of it, not a part of it: “This student’s claim lacks credibility.” Then there’s the follow-up comment on ZI by “Dementia,” noting that she’d read a conservative newspaper column on the story that said some of the same things as Icarus…
I smell FUD. Either “Icarus” isn’t who he claims, or this is a socially isolated English geek. If it’s the later, he might have his own bitter reasons for posting those comments. I’m a former socially isolated English geek myself, so I know whereof I speak. However, I had the benefit of learning by my Junior year not to give a flying fuck what other students thought of me.
It’s a lesson I wholeheartedly recommend for high school students of any intelligence.
Comment by Adam M. — March 3, 2005 @ 3:43 pm
Southerners are the most myopic, narrow minded morons to ever walk the earth. Let’s give them their own planet
Comment by Dante Evans — March 3, 2005 @ 8:23 pm
Dante: I’ve known some Southerners who don’t fit that stereotype, but the ones that do sure are ruining it for everyone else.
Comment by Adam M. — March 3, 2005 @ 9:06 pm
focus on schools, I suspect this may be a follow-on to the Kentucky Safe Schools program, established in 1998 by HB 300. The Safe Schools Act was a direct response to the 1 Dec 1997 attack in Heath High, West Paducah KY. ZeroIntelligence and AdamMessinger have lengthy comment sections discussing the incident. I got a strong sense that the Kentucky law is being prudently employed. Keep an eye out for comments by Icarus, who represents himself as a student at George Rogers Clark High School.
Pingback by Discursive Recursions — March 7, 2005 @ 7:19 am
Yeah.. I know some pretty stupid Yankees too.
From what I can see, we haven’t got a lock on stupidity in the south.
Hell look around, I’m sure you can spot someone stupid, it’s not like they are rare anywhere.
Comment by Xblackheart — March 9, 2005 @ 11:29 am
I don’t usually go in for metablogging, but I thought that I should share this piece of oddness with you, courtesy of Adam Messinger’s blog , in which Adam tells us that a Kentucky high school student has been arrested for making terrorist threats after someone (apparently it was the lad’s grandparents, of all people) reported a short story that he was writing to the authorities.
Pingback by The BinnsBlog — March 10, 2005 @ 1:32 pm
I have been following this story for a short time now. I find it interesting that this whole case is based on the grounds that Poole wrote his thoughts down in a note book. Poole has yet to be proven to have any weapons ready, any explosives , anything beyond the means of his own imagination. Yet his grandparents turn him over to the police with only a notebook and their own ideas as to what he might do. All this fallowing the Jeff Weise incident. This leads my mind to wonder if the grandparents acted out of the best interest of community or their own shared fear that they maybe the first characters in his story to get the ax. Next I would like to move on to the issue of freedom of speech which is not limited to what one may say but write in the privacy of their home. Finally I would like to address a very simple to see difference between this student and our other high school shooters. Poole has yet to be labled as a fanatic of any kind. Poole is not been found to be a self or otherwise proclaimed radical, nazi, or Extremist of any kind. Poole was not found hiding any weaponry of any kind. Poole has as yet even been proven have anymore a dislike much less blind seething hate for his school then any adverage teenager.
Comment by SGAE247 — April 11, 2005 @ 3:14 pm
I think the reason they’re doing this is because the Columbine shooters were found to have journals and website’s talking about the same stuff William was talking about. But that doesn’t constitute arresting him when we wasn’t found with evidence. I’m curious to know how they are thinking they’ll convict him. Honestly, where is the evidence? I don’t see any, and I’ve been looking for about a week or a convicting statement in the excerpts from his journal and have found none. This is comments from a teenager! Who’s to say that he wasn’t just venting his anger?
Xolleen
Comment by Xolleen — April 12, 2005 @ 12:02 pm
Exactly, Xolleen. This is absolutely ridiculous. They didn’t find a written confession, all they found was a private journal entry and then a badly written (but constitutional) piece he was going to turn into school. This is ridiculous. I can only really express that so much, but this is really overwhelmingly stupid. I don’t have anything nice to say about the people trying to send this kid to jail. And to make it an issue of terrorism is just a kick in the pants for everyone trying to lend credibility to the war on terror. I think this kid should not only be sent free, but compensated for the stupidity of ths situation. My god I can’t believe how… Oh god… I’m so deppressed now.
Comment by Chris — August 5, 2005 @ 4:25 am
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Pingback by Winchester Police arrest Student for Zombie Story — January 30, 2006 @ 1:53 am