Student transferred for making Counter-strike map based on school

  • By Polybren, GameSpot
  • Posted May 2, 2007 7:24 pm GMT

A senior at Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas was transferred to an alternative education center last month after it was learned that the student had created a map of his school in the online game Counter-Strike, according to a report on the community-focused site Fort Bend Now.The student...

A senior at Clements High School in Sugar Land, Texas was transferred to an alternative education center last month after it was learned that the student had created a map of his school in the online game Counter-Strike, according to a report on the community-focused site Fort Bend Now.

The student wasn't arrested or charged with any crimes, but police were called in to search his home, where they found five swords. Police also ordered the student to erase the game and maps from his computer.

Between the game's violent content, the discovery of the swords (which Fort Bend Now reports may have been decorative), and other as-yet-unrevealed information, officials with the Fort Bend Independent School District labeled the situation "level 3," which mandated the transfer to the alternative school. According to Fort Bend Now, "level 3" is code for a student who "engages in conduct relating to a false alarm or report (including a bomb threat) or a terroristic threat involving a public school."

Currently there is a split on the school district's board of trustees, with a pair of trustees publicly suggesting the transfer was an overreaction and pushing for a public meeting at which the disciplinary issue might be resolved. However, some of their fellow trustees and the school board administration are standing by the move.

"Ever since Columbine, anything that remotely looks like a threat has to be taken very seriously," Fort Bend Now quotes FBISD spokesperson Mary Ann Simpson as saying. "The minute we don't, something serious is going to happen."

884 Comments

  • RaptorShinRyu

    Posted Dec 10, 2009 1:12 pm GMT

    i really wish people werent so suspicious about creating virtual content based on real-life things.

    i for one would love to have a game that lets you play multiplayer battles inside places such as the miami or orlando intl airports and some malls because the layout of the buildings would make for awsome TDM/Objective based gameplay, not because i want to pretend im killing innocent people.

    laws like this really bug the hell out of me because when i go to those places, i always think about how cool it would be to play inside them

  • UchiahFAN

    Posted Nov 27, 2009 6:09 pm GMT

    wow ! i think the school officials and the police should go to a retardation management center that kid did nothing wrong!

  • cowmaan

    Posted Oct 24, 2009 10:20 am GMT

    If you relate any game with any sort of terrorism activity or threat to the nation then.... i guess more than 90% people on the planet earth would be terrorists....All in all it was a huge mistake by officials...instead he should be congratulated for his efforts...because not everyone can make Counter strike maps...! ... I congratulate him...!

    http://www.counterstriketutes.com/2009/09/play-counter-strike-online-game.html

  • Supergodzilla1

    Posted Jul 18, 2009 4:41 pm GMT

    Time to draw up my own map of my school and see what happens-

  • drumbreak1

    Posted Apr 27, 2009 7:40 pm GMT

    that's how we roll down here in Texas lol, we have idiot school officials i did something i guess something similar but not to that magnitude of course lol

  • viewtifuljon111

    Posted Feb 19, 2009 6:53 am GMT

    What the hell? Are you serious. Wow. That sounds like something I would do. Idiot trustees.

  • classic7

    Posted Jan 8, 2009 1:40 pm GMT

    This guy could take that city to the Supreme Court and win millions in compensation. That town was asking for it when it decided it was the LAW and violated his rights, i wish i was him, i want millions of dollars for doing nothing!!!!

  • gertjan88

    Posted Aug 19, 2007 3:18 am GMT

    This is a case of: "Those who take away a little freedom to gain a little security, deserve neither and lose both".

  • Inuosha

    Posted Aug 15, 2007 12:22 am GMT

    it's a game man, I would not call that terrorism

  • Mordaeniis

    Posted Jul 18, 2007 1:45 pm GMT

    ok...wtf...half the kids at my school have swords(lots of nerds...lol) including myself...this bull where the media is trying to tell people that you can learn to fire an actual weapon by playing CS or w/e is a load of crap...you never see any stories on how they should stop making bb guns or airsofts do you? and yet they would work a whole hell of a lot better to learn wit,...and even then its not much...people need to grow up..and actual schools would be awsome for CS..allways thought of finding an abandonded chool building and going to play paint ball with my buddies...and it fits CS especially...what with the whole terrorist thing..

  • x-wing20

    Posted May 31, 2007 6:46 pm GMT

    it' all becuase jack thompson bliams virgina tech on counter strike. He said it himself.

  • Chris62442

    Posted May 31, 2007 12:09 am GMT

    It's not nice to shoot people in a virtual representation of your school. After all, Eric and Dylan shot many a monster in Doom and look at what they did.

  • h_alhashim

    Posted May 29, 2007 1:53 pm GMT

    hey guys where can i get this map??? and thx and one more think i wana play online ok thx thx and thx cya all and thx

  • MysticDynamite

    Posted May 28, 2007 6:42 pm GMT

    I'm just impressed that the high school kid can build maps for Counter-Strike.

    As for the police searching his home and the paranoia over the kid owning decorative swords, I will only leave this:

    The only thing Americans have to fear is their fear over nothing.

  • zz1234v2

    Posted May 28, 2007 1:01 am GMT

    "were they found five swords" yeah anyone wiht a sword os goona burst inot a place adn chop people up yeah thats not being moronic or anything. So what if its modled after a school a school is a interesting place to hold DM's (in the game of course) i dont really see the problem i mean its a terorist and counter terorist thing not a kid with a gun shooting people for no reson i am sick of people being like "oh thats bad if its violent" no its not we have wars dont we we have acctual shootings trying to make us not see or listen to that is like trying to tell us not to breath its jut not gonna happen i hate poeple thinking every person that plays a violent video game is gonna burst into a bank and shoot up the place thats stupid also its what you make of it one kid might not think about it but another might get frecked out by it you cant just say everyone is gonna find it messed up its not dumb people

  • Ed259

    Posted May 24, 2007 11:17 pm GMT

    ...so when does the school boards sue the movie companies about their parodies of high schools?

  • asterisky

    Posted May 22, 2007 9:40 pm GMT

    The kid was well within his rights when he was creating that map. There are no laws against making maps resembling public locations. Searching his home and deleting his maps and games was unconstitutional. His map posed no threat to anyone, it did not violate any laws, and simply creating a map for a game is in no way illegal, nor a logical reason for having his house searched and switching his schools. For you people saying he should have known better, what about the civil rights movement? People were getting death threats for doing things that were perfectly legal, but they still kept doing them. If a kid wants to express himself in a nonviolent way, let him do so. He might have expected it would cause a big scene, but it is still legal. If I were in his place, I would take some sort of action to defend my rights as a citizen of the United States. Even if he is a kid, he should still have rights.

    So what if an adult was in his place?
    Things would be much different...

  • Blazin_Ice

    Posted May 21, 2007 1:20 pm GMT

    now your house is getting searched for being creative? freedom of speech my ass.

  • taraboi1

    Posted May 19, 2007 10:16 am GMT

    wow........... i had the same idea with my school but i donno how to make a css map

  • kappareign

    Posted May 13, 2007 7:25 pm GMT

    Sugar Land.

  • theKSMM

    Posted May 12, 2007 8:04 pm GMT

    I can remember when Doom deathmatches were all the rage in the early '90s. There was no Internet play, so you had to have a LAN. And the only place to find a LAN was in the workplace.

    As it result, it was commonplace for people to have custom maps made the emulated their work environments, cubicle by cubicle. Then you'd run around blasting your virtual co-workers in your virtual space.

    If we had done that sort of thing today however, we'd almost certainly get fired and make the six o'clock news later that evening. We'd probably be unhirable as a result.

    The transfer is bad enough, but making him erase the maps? That sounds like a violation of First Amendment Freedom of Speech protections. Either the kid violated the law or he didn't. And if he didn't, he shouldn't be punished for his could-have-been crime.

  • bullhed

    Posted May 10, 2007 3:13 pm GMT

    With just this information I can't say whether or not this was indeed a threat. But who here hasn't thought about running around their school with paintball guns with their friends? I bet you this kid has if he's anything like me, and this was an easy way to do it without getting in trouble. Sucks he actually DID.

  • Dreski83

    Posted May 10, 2007 4:01 am GMT

    The only thing I can see wrong with this whole silly ordeal is the fact that if someone DID want to infiltrate the school, they would now have a detailed floor plan they could run thru numerous times in simulation form. Beyond that, the kid has no troublesome past, owns a few swords, plays a game where he most likely vents any violent tension which he can no longer do thanks to bad police work. I really would hate to see a good kid go all skitzo cause he was wrongfully accused of ill behavior that he may sadly not even understand.

  • nopeace182

    Posted May 9, 2007 7:39 pm GMT

    I don't see how according to their rules they could do that. They labeled it Level 3 citation. Level 3 "is code for a student who 'engages in conduct relating to a false alarm or report (including a bomb threat) or a terroristic threat involving a public school." Okay, the student didn't announce a threat on the school, somebody discovered that he used the school as a backdrop for one of his levels (which are made for FUN) and told the higher-ups. According to their rules they shouldn't have been able to transfer him.

  • DangerClown

    Posted May 9, 2007 5:51 pm GMT

    I think that's totally overreacting. Who wouldn't want a shooter map of the school or work, especially if you could play the game with friends from either. Punished for natural desire and the talent to do something creative.

  • NiotaHime

    Posted May 9, 2007 2:57 pm GMT

    This guy is an idiot. You would think he would have enough common sense with everything that is going on not to make a replica of his school in a shooting game.

  • dancing_OGRE

    Posted May 9, 2007 1:52 pm GMT

    don't the police have anything better to do

  • dancing_OGRE

    Posted May 9, 2007 1:50 pm GMT

    omg u guys have a sucky government

  • MistrChief

    Posted May 9, 2007 12:19 pm GMT

    Why would this talented kid (who can actually map his own school) be transfered? I have my disagreements with school systems (mainly the one I'm in), but this is just plainwrong. If he intended to gun down his old school, he could still go back and gun it down. There is no good lockdown system in schools (as witnessed at Columbine and Virginia Tech). And at the rate things are moving, there never will be. I honestly hate to say it, being in high school and all, and it scares the living poo out of me, but that is the truth.

  • Hitman650

    Posted May 9, 2007 12:07 pm GMT

    Thats just plain stupid. It's a #@$%ing game for pete's sake!

  • ribbz22

    Posted May 9, 2007 11:06 am GMT

    this is insane, it is a freakin cs map. while i can understand the concern and questioning the person.... if that doesn't lead anywhere, the person really shouldn't be punished.....even if they found 5 swords, which are legal to have. just imagine how much it would suck if you were innocent and in that same situation...but at the same time, making a FPS map of your school isn't the best idea.

  • General_Gustaf

    Posted May 9, 2007 10:55 am GMT

    Ohh, dang. Better delete what little I have on the map of my school i made. Never know when the American Police might tip off the Old Bill, and i'll get SAS teams raiding my house and confiscating my PC and my games....

    Lol. Really, making an accurate map of a school is extremely difficult, and we have our school layout on our actual website, so it wouldn't be hard to take a look.

  • bodylotion

    Posted May 9, 2007 10:14 am GMT

    I once wanted to create a CS-map of the Supermarket i work at. Luckily for me i found it too hard to create all the products on the shelves and quit creating the map (i didn't have much free time neither). Oh yeah and luckily for me i dont live in America

  • djfidelone

    Posted May 9, 2007 9:50 am GMT

    Miracle_Ear:

    I dont know how old you are, but, most kids in high school arent the most bright people in the world. Its an awkward time for some and alienating for others and so on.. This kid probably felt like $hit for what he did AFTER THE FACT, most likely because he wasn't thinking before he did what he did. Not everyone thinks of columbine or virgina when designing violent games or maps. If that were the case, persnal values on views of schools insted of say maps of NY or Miami in GTA or LA in true crime would be a more topic and Jack Thompson would have won that(those) court case(s).
    Who ever voted in that council is retarted. If they played games or knew what was taught in their text books regarding violence and humanity this would not be that big of a thing....

  • Bannsai

    Posted May 9, 2007 3:01 am GMT

    Now this show that things in the US has gotten out of hand. They had no right to transfer a student just because they suspect something. Most people that go rampage are twisted and in need of help. They DO NOT plan there action, like a robber does. And i don't think he would go and rob the school, to steal what? Things like Columbine happen because:

    1. Easy access to guns
    2. The twisted thinking of "Shoot to kill" (Police, military and every one else thinks. Its the best solution.)

    Thinks like Columbine are similar to suicide bombings in Iraq. There you have people thinking life is not worth living and its the **** Americans who invade our country and kill are children, destroying everything. And now they want to take our resources too. Thing like this happen here where iam from too. But people here don't go and shoot folks down just because there life is crappy. Here the just commit suicide. Its horrible that it have to end that way. Put more money into school and try to help people that are having an hard time and not try to fix it by transferring them. People of America deal with you own problems for once! Not blame it on someone else.

    Games are like books. It lets you escape into an world where you are free of the worries of real life. Stop blaming games for bad children blame book as well and its not the games that should educate kids. thats parents responsibility.

  • yeby

    Posted May 9, 2007 1:32 am GMT

    Wow, I wonder if I know the kid. I'm out of high school now, but I was going to school in Fort Bend two years ago, and Clements was our rival school. Interesting layout for a map, i might add.

    And also, about Clements: Maybe they should quit worrying about this sort of thing, and crack down on the number of rich kids doing cocaine in the bathrooms.

  • surfnwest

    Posted May 8, 2007 6:32 pm GMT

    it's just a game map...if he actually did something than it would be a different story. Maps are made all the time recreating famous places, it makes it fun because you can relate to your settings and about the swords, well it just depends whether or not they were novelty swords. Those are not sharp and are meant for looks. They should've interrogated him and if they found something THEN charge him, not kick someone out of school for a map. You always used to hear adults say " video games are just a waste of time." Well i guess they just got important didn't they?

  • foolwestcoast33

    Posted May 8, 2007 5:03 pm GMT

    Its a game its not like he made characters of his students and teachers on the game just the media attacking nerds

  • princepointe

    Posted May 8, 2007 3:22 pm GMT

    Holy Crap. If I was this kids parents I would sue the hell out of this school for discrimination and defimation of character. This kids entire high school career is screwed. Oh don't get me started with college. What schools gonna let him in with that crap on his transcript. He wasnt transfered to another high school,he was sent to an "alternative" school. Where i'm from thats where the bad apples go. And that **** does go on your permanent record. They would be paying bigggggg.Heck if thats the case lets suspend anyone whom plays rainbow six. Looks like vegas to me. How about Gears of War. Theres a church in that one. The many suffer for the mistakes of the few. Heck they shouldnt have been picking on that V-Tech kid. I'm not condoning what he did but you can push a person so far. I've seen many kids snap in high school on a bully. Especially in college where theres alcohol,women,and no supervision. Your not gonna stop a columbine or V-Tech by destroying peoples creativity.

  • 50shot

    Posted May 8, 2007 1:19 pm GMT

    talk about over-kill... geez. everyone needs to take a mf'n chill pills

  • Hanrock

    Posted May 8, 2007 9:43 am GMT

    You don't know what happened to guys in Shanghai! Some of the students there made customized 'Death Notes' to intimadate their teachers. China banned the manga, 'Death Note' ever since!

  • A7Xfan

    Posted May 7, 2007 11:00 pm GMT

    I get this but its demoralizing to see that to be safe we do have to take actions like this. If these shootings never happened I think I'd find this funny, and the irony of it still has goofy overtones. But I shouldn't be laughing at this cause if this kid has problems this could be a simulator of sorts for a real attack.
    No legal actions but to have him transfferred sounds alright so long as this doesn't go down on some record against him.

  • mustang3889

    Posted May 7, 2007 9:56 pm GMT

    This is rediculous. There is no law against making a map in a video game based on a school and owning a sword is not a big deal at all. People over react way too much. I can understand the school asking him to delete the map or something but searching his house, ordering him to erase his game, AND transferrring him to another school? That is a total violation of that kids rights. Sometimes I really wish I was a lawyer. I really hope that school district doesn't get away with this.

  • BloodFalconX

    Posted May 7, 2007 8:49 pm GMT

    This is seriously stupid on the School and Gov'ts part. I mean, I would totally love to make a CS map of my school if I knew how. I'm there every 5 days out of every week for 7 hours, I practically memorized the school, it would be a great, strategic CS level and such. Also, that sword thing is stupid. What's that kid going to do with swords anyways? Pull it out of his jean POCKET and slice someone before one of the 1000 people in the school notice? I understand their concerns, but they should do some background checks before taking any seriously drastic measures like transferring him.

  • topraman517

    Posted May 7, 2007 7:23 pm GMT

    I can see why a non-violent kid would make such a map. Heck, a school would make a perfect CS map.

  • honkyjoe

    Posted May 7, 2007 4:27 pm GMT

    whats the gig deal...My school would make a sweet CS map and tons of people have sword in there flippin house two...

  • f789790

    Posted May 7, 2007 3:54 pm GMT

    When I saw this on the news and realized most schools are perfect for multiplayer action. Yes while it was stupid to ever talk about it in school near paranoid school officials, you can have some great shootouts with your friends online. I so want to make a map of my school.

  • RoC1909

    Posted May 7, 2007 1:54 pm GMT

    While I agree with extreme punishment for kids that do wrong, making a map of your school seriously goes against the kids rights. What was he creating, a map of the school so others can rehearse the next 'Virginia' incident?? Please, I remember when I wanted to make a Doom WAD of my workplace just to have some fun and to see if I had the ability to do it. While I SUCKED at creating levels (or anything for that matter), I think it would be clearly against my rights to have the police do what they had done to me as they had done to this kid.

  • yourbeliefs

    Posted May 7, 2007 1:17 pm GMT

    This is beyond ludicrous. Back in the day I made a project out of converting my entire school campus into a cool Duke Nukem 3d map. The school should be ashamed. You do a good search of user maps for ANY game on the internet and odds are you are going to find a good number that are based on not only schools, but real buildings. Do we go after all these people because they may exploit possible breaches of security?

  • Cablestein

    Posted May 7, 2007 10:55 am GMT

    Talk about overblowing the situation.

    I feel bad for the kid.

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