A teen who had been jailed for a Facebook comment is now on suicide watch. Justin Barker, who was jailed in February, has been described as “depressed” and “scared”.
Carter was arrested earlier this year following an argument he had on Facebook about online game, League of Legends.
According to the Huffington Post, his father Jack reported: “[S]omeone had said something to the effect of ‘Oh you’re insane, you’re crazy, you’re messed up in the head,’” Jack recalled to ABC in an earlier interview.
“To which [Justin] replied ‘Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,’ and the next two lines were ‘lol and jk’ [all sic].”
Even though the teen insisted that he was only joking, a woman did not take the incident as a joke and reported it to police.
Given the increase in school–related violence over the last few years, the threat was taken seriously and Carter was arrested and charged with making a “terrorist threat”. His bail was placed at an amount that the family would not be able to afford.
“Without getting into the really nasty details, he’s had concussions, black eyes, moved four times from base for his own protection,” Jack elaborated. “He’s been put in solitary confinement, nude, for days on end because he’s depressed. All of this is extremely traumatic to this kid. This is a horrible experience.”
