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 “t erroristic threat”.
“They arrested him, Chen said of FBISD police, and also went to the house to search”.The Lin family consented to the search, and a hammer was found in the boy’s room, which he used to fix his bed, because it wasn’t in good shape, Chen said. He indicated police seized the hammer as a potential weapon.
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 shoot ings. No charges were filed, though the boy won’t be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies.
Photos of the CS map can be found here: (what a shame! this map looks pretty good!)
And here’s the actual map, minus the textures:
www.megaupload.com/?d=F48893HJ
rapidshare.com/files/29195663/clmbsp.rar.html
www.megashare.com/165325
Later Update:
I found the whole story (originally hosted on Fort Bend Now):
A Chinese student has been arrested in Texas, charged with “Suspected T errorist Activity”. This student was apprehended after parents discovered that he had used plans of his High School in the creation of a map for an online first person shooter. The authorities were notified after parents learned of the map from their children, who had downloaded it off of the internet.
“They arrested him,. Chen said of FBISD police, .and also went to the house to search.. The Lin family consented to the search, and a hammer was found in the boy’s room, which he used to fix his bed, because it wasn’t in good shape, Chen said. He indicated police seized the hammer as a potential weapon.
While no charges have been filed against the student, he has been removed from Clements High School and will not be allowed to graduate with his former classmates.
I don’t know what to say. For most of us who have ever designed a 3D environment, using familiar surroundings is very common place. With no sinister motive, designers use plans for all sorts of different areas to add variety to their designs. I don’t understand the punishment given to this student, who has been cleared of any premonitions for violence.
He has been convicted of no crime but then the school expels him? I guess “innocent until proven guilty” has no merit with the school board. Even with the authorities finding no evidence of gaming-related causes for the Virginia Tech shootings… It seems that we, as gamers, still are targeted as warped killers.
This post was written by bullets on May 3, 2007
…land of the free…
The land of the free… Thats good work. You have to break eggs to make an omelette. So what if innocent people get hurt? Its for a good cause. We get some bad guys sooner or later. I wish we could get rid of all non-americans somehow. Oh, and the atheists. Then we wouldnt need to have neither police or army, cause good white american christians are good people. We have to protect our way of living, cause the terrorists wants to take it from us. They cant stand happy people, so they blow themselves up, in hope that we will get as miserable as they are. They have no other dreams in life, things like love and family life. We have to keep the shining beacon of freedom the u.s. protected. They all envy us.
p.s ty to look up the word irony before you post angry hate comments d.s.
Mike
okay….I was planning on doing this too….making a map for say…R6vegas…based on my school….but hey…., I will! I dont live in americaa *victory dance*
dont get me wrong…im not planning on killing anyone in school…
Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence
That’s a bunch of BS. If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was racial profiling against that kid. All he did was make a map, which you can usually get from a new student packet. What did he do wrong? Nothing honestly, if I was that boy’s parents I’d sue the school district because they are stripping that kid of something he busted his butt for 4 years for. Public schools these days are nothing but a sad joke, and they all are catering to those who raise the most hell.
this is bullshit…he’s not a terrorist he’s a gamer and Harvard just came out with the study that said gaming actually reduces the likely hood of a troubled child!
I wish I came up with the idea and had the skill to make a gaming map of my high school it would have been awesome!
you have GOT to be kidding me!
seemingly educated people letting emotions get the best of them.
im sorry but the terrorists have won.. they have scared us all shitless..
its a shame.
You have got to be kidding me.
amazing. The poor kid, he was just looking to have some fun. And whats with the Chienese thing? Was he of Chienese decent, or an exchange student? Freaking people need to settle down and stop living in fear. Give kids the benefit of the doubt that they arent evil terrorists.
An excellent example of to much paranoia. An innocent set of cirumstances twisted into a plot. I fear the American people have become so hyperaware;that the days when a hammer is, just a hammer; have gone.
The problem isn’t so much with the government, but with the schools themselves. Schools don’t practice the “innocent until proven guilty” laws that courts do. Students, unlike most other citizens, have very little rights. It’s just how it is.
I don’t see the issue as being racist, however. Unless parents and school board members are explicitly pointing out the fact that he’s Chinese, and that’s why they consider him a terrorist threat. I think the main point of the terrorist allegations are that he used the school’s map for a FPS. Not terrorist, but something that shouldn’t be shared with many other students due to the state of schools in general. With the amount of people that don’t understand that video games are just video games, and not some gateway into making children killing machines, it’s no surprise this happened.
But, hey, with all of the fucking idiots shooting up schools and public places, people are gonna blame something. Generally the only people to blame are the shooters themselves and their parents. But the bad parents never admit that they’re bad at parenting.
Just imagine the rage this kid must be feeling after being robbed of the once in a lifetime event of a high school graduation…. over a GAME. If the thought of shooting up the school never had crossed his mind… I’m sure it has since this happened.
I agree with Sasa – his parents should file a lawsuit. Unless the school has a rule that is in writing that says students aren’t allowed to create a map of the school in a first person shooter, which I seriously doubt they have, there’s no way they could lose. I’d be first in line to donate for their legal fees.
Wait, he can’t participate in graduation stuff because of THIS? That’s frickin’ BS.
Utterly insane. They found a HAMMER? OH FUCKING NOES, A HAMMER. GTFO my world idiots.
Hooray for blind media fed fear!
my friends and i always wanted to do this but none of us had the skill orreally wanted to invest the time and effort into making it. stupid mccarthyist authorities.
Agree with Sasa. Although it has become commonplace under the Bush administration that seemingly stupid actions are in order, I fail to believe that there are no hidden motives, like racism or anything financial in behind it.
Presumably this is all part of a campaign to make the rest of the world believe Americans are all stupid, in a kind of long-term å‡ç—´ä¸ç™² (of the 36 stratagems).
I remember when the HL2 SDK (Software Development Kit) came out and the first thing I went to model was my high school (Don’t worry everyone though, I never finished it).
As bad as it may sound, it really is the only logical thing to want to model at that age. Besides the house you live in, it’s really where you spend a lot of your time and you know the place well enough to model it in a 3D world. Plus, it’s something you can show too your friends and they can relate to (assuming they go to the same school). It really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that schools are usually the first thing modeled by somebody just trying to learn a new trade. People need to stop freaking out.
And seriously, a hammer? They confiscated a hammer? Who does terrorist activity with a freaking hammer? Can I get a round of common sense?
– Oh my god, your son brought a pocket knife on a camp out, KILL HIM!!
– All your maps belong to us.
– I am afraid that a man who lives in a cave and doesn’t shave is going to bring down the USA.
– I can’t believe we once used the Chinese and Afrikaans as slaves, now they could both take us.
– He had a hammer, Jesus was nailed to a cross……… OMG!
hey michael, fuck you.
p.s. irony: a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other’s false conceptions
I have firsthand experience with this sort of situation. I was talking over Steam to an (ex-)friend of mine, and I said, “Man, if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna bring a gun and shoot you myself.” And wouldn’t you know it, I got pulled out of class the next day and was suspended for ten days. I hate to be a bumbling part of the crowd, but the modern public schooling system is a bunch of bullshit.
photoshopped
kind of odd, because our software teacher once _asked_ us to make an unreal tournament map of our school. We never got round to doing it though.
…woo i feel so safe now… remind me next time i sit down to play some CS or Unreal to make sure im not playing on a map that resembles somewhere i may have been…
we need more schools like my college (full sail university) even in our audio classes, we play Medal of Honor as part of ambient sound exercises…video games are not the root of evil!
what the hell is this world coming to? Askabarr said it right, “the american people have become so hyperaware; that the days when a hammer, was just a hammer; have gone”
whats next? telling steam and all them to not allow their software to be customizable??
Wow… What do you think they would think of the map I ended up scrapping a few months ago based off of pistures I took on a tour of the white house years ago? Hell, I have an entire 36 piece tool set in my room.
No wonder kids are fucked up these days. Who wouldn’t want to rebel against such a shitty system.
Personally I am attending an Art school and they ENCOURAGE the students to make maps of existing areas. Game Art students are required to learn the Unreal Engine and they have made not only our school as a map (complete with some of the faculty or things that would be identifiable as theirs) and they have made a map of the local mall too!!! They aren’t terrorists, they are learning and doing one hell of a job!
If I were the kid or his parents I would be PISSED. And his parents are the ones who said something. So who in the hell is the kid supposed to trust?
Check the graphics and the talent behind the design. Would one be arrested for doing a mall or other public structure? This not someone who is a threat. This is next guy designing the multi-billion dollar skyscrapers. I got a hammer and a whole rachet set in my room does that constitute a theat. Sounds to me like they didn’t want to leave empty handed. Hey @$$#0!3$ you owe a kid a hammer.
Wow, I would almost welcome this kind of unfair punishment. Being able to sue the district for wrongful and unjust punishment would make for great tuition money to whichever college I liked, especially after the publicity it would cause and/or make.
I wonder which education deprived community this is in, oh wait Texas, weird. A quick bit of research shows that Fort Bend happens to be the wealthiest county in Texas. Yay for money and ignorance.
@Michael
China owns 20% of America:
http://www.fincher.org/images/2007-10-03-WhoOwnsNationalDebt.png
Japan owns even bigger of America. That’s the only reason you are enjoying the lifestyle you live right now. America’s not saving and not exporting – and quite frankly looking to be quite the historical economic ‘train wreck.’ Your credit card, your mortgage, your student loan is all made possible partly because of China.
The end punishment was harsh. Other steps needed to be taken. This could’ve been a warning sign for something else. It seems as though it isn’t.
The truth is though he shouldn’t have made the map.
In a game where simulate murdering people making a map of your school will draw attention.
Simulated killing in real life school = not good.
thats fucked up… how much more stupid can you get? I made a map of my school am I a terroristic threat? Well probably cos im muslim lol
What the fuck man, some guy makes a map for CS based on his school and he gets expelled. America’s full of fucking shit. Anywhere else in the world, this would be acceptable.
In this day and age of parental paranoia and psycho nut jobs shooting classmates because they “didn’t fit in”. I would think that out of simple forethought and self-preservation and responsibility, one would think twice about making their school a venue for shooting, even if in a harmless game.
Just like carrying a toothpaste tube on a plane was no big deal before 9/11, and now a confiscated item, one would think that just perhaps a group of paranoid and uninformed parents and “fearing for their job” school officials might just find this map a great danger to the students. It would have been more intelligent to not have created the map in the first place.
Sure, the authorities overreacted, but I can understand why. Knowing this possibility and avoiding it all together is called being “wise” and shows an exercise of responsibility. Something a high school student usually hasn’t yet learned about existing in a society that doesn’t always see things the way they do.
What do we learn about this? Think before you act would be a good start. Think about all of the possible consequences of an action beyond how “cool” it would be.
Stupid texans.
If I owned a place in texas and a place in Hell, I would rent the place in texas and live in Hell.
Unfortunately this doesn’t surprise me at all. This is just another case of authorities overreacting to something they have little or no knowledge about. This guys achievements should be celebrated instead of him being expelled, I’m sure another school would be happy to snap him up and so they should. I hate to stereotype but as an outsider from Britain it really does seem as if America has gone absolutely crazy over this terrorist thing which really doesn’t pose anywhere near as much of a threat as they make out!
Wait a minute.
Isn’t in Texas that people are entitled legally to “own a gun” for “personal proteccion”?
Now let’s do some basic maths, multiply the number of families living in Texas for the number of possible fire weapons existing for “personal proteccion”.
THIS IS RIDICULOUS.
Signed: European Dude.
There is a thought exercise that goes something like this:
In America, freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution as one of our most important rights. If you are in a crowded movie theater and scream “Fire” you will be almost certainly arrested for it. But, what about freedom of speech?
Yelling fire in a crowded theater can cause a mass rush for the doors causing injury or even death. Your freedom of speech has to be balanced against the common good of the group.
We are all aware of Virginia Tech, and Columbine. School shootings touch a deep nerve in America. Does the student’s freedom of speech supersede the right of the students and teachers peace of mine? The majority have decided in this matter over and over all across America.
It does not.
Their is only one effective way to help mitigate the possibility of another Columbine or Virginia Tech. A zero tolerance policy. When you have a policy that allows “grey” areas, those areas may be exploited and the results can be catastrophic.
The argument is not about his freedom to create something, it’s everyone else’s freedom to live and work in as stress free an environment as possible. Certainly it appears he created the map for nothing more than fun. Unfortunately, a real possibility exists that someone with bad intentions could use that map as practice.
The world is full of evil people. It’s our reality. Until a better solution is worked out, zero tolerance is the policy. I think the school handled the situation exactly the way it should be. They should be praised for taking a proactive approach in this situation instead of waiting for another disaster to happen to determine policy.
ZOMG, I HAVE GREAT IDEA FELLOW TERRORIST!! WE WILL MAKE MAPS OF THE PLACES WE INTEND TO DESTROY TO KILL ALL THE INFIDELS AND POST IT ON THE INTERNET.. YES YES.. WE WILL KILL ALL THOSE AMERICANS WITH HAMMERS!!! I KNOW.. WE SHOULD POST OUR PLAN ON THE INTERNET SO EVERYONE KNOWS IN ADVANCE!!
for some reason i dont think real terrorist who plan to hurt people give up their plan before they do it. see the basic idea is to catch people by surprise. Otherwise it doesnt work out too well for them, as the police/ government generally trys to prevent that sort of thing.
The terrorist have succeeded in making the american consumer voter and politician scarred shitless. As ben franklin said, a man who trades freedom for security will soon find he has neither. A lot of americans are more afraid of their government than terrorist at this point, I am one of them. I cant have a can of coke past the checkpoint because it might be a bomb. But I can buy one after the checkpoint for 5 bucks.. We’ve lost more freedoms because of the cowards here in the US than the cowards over seas, and then we send our young men to die for what? Freedom? How about getting some freedom back in the states before we try giving it to iraq.
Man, if I were this kid, the school’s handling of this issue would ENCOURAGE me to commit a violent act. I made a map of my school in Duke3d way back in the day and we played it at school with my Technology teacher. People are so afraid nowadays that innocent people are being harassed just because some dumbass can’t differentiate between reality and a game. Sickening.
I made a doom II map of my high school back in the early 90s. A lot of people found out about it and it was actually really popular within my school. The computer teacher knew about it and everything. Boy how times have changed.
Related to post and @ Michael
This is one of the Reasons why I think the human population should be controlled. I am trying not to think survival of the fittest is right especially in a civilised population and especially because of human rights and morality, but dear me there are a lot of stupid people in this world.
This is less of a threat and more of a compliment to the school, if the kid hated the school he would not have spent so much time and effort re-creating it in such a detailed way, plus the fact that the only enemies you can fight against in the game are terrorists or counter-terrorists makes this school board retarded.
Unconcious morons.
Typical, there goes the government again, jumping at shadows. Doing whatever they can to say “hey look, we busted a terrorist, see? Your tax money is in good hands, don’t worry!” While at the same time using the scare tactic of “See, terrorists may even be your own children!”
It’s too bad, the kid’s got talent. He should be making maps for the game developers or perhaps be an architect.
This country (US) needs to spend less time trying to prove we have balls, and fucking grow some! I totally agree: Terrorists Win! However, it’s not like they started it; this country has been becoming more full of pansies year after year.
I’m not saying be completely insensitive; issues like racism are right to be brought up and handled appropriately (though I don’t think racism is a factor in this case), but these things get blown way out of proportion. Kids can’t wipe their ass nowadays without the government stepping in and telling mom and pop that if their kid develops a rash it’s because they’re bad parents and then they ban that type of toilet tissue. Let’s do a nationwide ban and recall on hammers; scientists now say that they can be used as a weapon.
I’m all for putting instructions on everything (even on shampoo bottles), but the warning labels are becoming excessive! If people don’t know by now that you should not ride a bike in the middle of the night with no light or reflective clothing then that’s their fucking fault.
Some people deserve to die yet we make sure they live regardless of how moronic they are. It’s called evolution; let those fuckers die so we can work on more productive things. An example of people that should die are people that are so hopped up on fear pills passed out by the media, that they can’t even live their lives. In the jungle, if you’re worried germs all fucking day you get eaten by a fucking lion. I say let those fuckers get eaten by lions and lets move on from this ridiculous spotlight thrown on everything that looks anything like what we fear.
Video games are not the issue here. If anything it should be noted that people that are playing video games are killing everything they have enough ammo to kill IN a game, RATHER than in real life.
I WOULD say we make a nationwide effort to make a CS map of EVERY school in the US (there’s got to be at least a few kids in every school with the know-how to create a CS map) — sort of a reverse boycott — but then I’d be worried the government would send me to one of their overseas prisons for starting a huge “terrorist” ring.
For fuck sake, evolve America!
During high school, I made a a Quake2 map of the high school with fun alterations such as secrets in the math rooms and the gym turned into a multi-level arena for rocketing.
It was a great exercise in getting familiar with 3d modeling.
Perhaps, it is not a matter of time but that we have already reached a state of fascism.
Wikitionary definition of fascism: A political regime based on strong centralized government, suppressing through violence any criticism or opposition of the regime, and exalting nation, state, or religion above the individual.
I used DOOM to make a whole game of my high school back in the day.. killin goff the monstrous teacher “bosses” and the rest of the staff.. then, no one could give a damn about it.. but I did give a copy to a few of the cool teachers.
The ridiculous part is that you all think its okay for the map to be in a FIRST PERSON SHOOTER game — involving terrorists and counter terrorists. If this was a map for Care Bears Dream Wonderland 3D this would be no problem.