April 30, 2008
UT Austin Student in Hot Water for Terroristic Threats
20-year-old Justin Levi McCelvey, a self-described Spurs fan (based off a now-deleted Myspace account), was overheard bemoaning that he "wished he could go into a classroom and shoot everybody," and "blow up this campus and blow up Austin" ... "Virginia Tech style." A fellow student relayed his comments to university counselors, who in turn told the police.
"He said he was going to blow up campus, that he would be the next UT sniper from the tower, that he wanted to blow up Austin," said University Police Department Chief Robert Dahlstrom to News 8 Austin. "In this day in age on a college campus you can't go around making comments like that to your friends. We take these comments very seriously."
Though McCelvey now reportedly claims that his remarks were harmless, authorities are taking the incident seriously and have charged him with a third-degree felony, punishable by anywhere from 2 to 10 years in jail. This occurred less than two weeks after the arrest of another University of Texas student, 20-year-old Jason Liao, who faces similar charges after bringing a gun onto campus.
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So a troubled college student vents some disturbing thoughts to friends, who proceed drop the dime on him. The cops offer their "treatment", which involves felony charges and stigmatizing publicity.
I guess a stint in jail is the perfect medicine for depression.
This just in....20 year-olds are stupid.
I'm more afraid of a system that tosses people that need mental help in prison than a person letting off a little anger and making threats. Two years in prison for throwing a fit in public? That is going to be one mad cat when he gets out.
wrong solution.. poor guy.
Yea im not sure throwing him in jail and putting him through all this bullshit is the right thing to do. hes just gonna be more pissed and sad when this is all over....