Lawyers argue youth’s intention:
Things are getting out of hand at Gulf Shores. Look at what kind of “evidence” they have against Joe Meredith…
Joseph Scott Meredith, 17, charged with conspiracy to commit murder, sketched characters in the image of himself and an unidentified 15-year-old student who is facing the same charge.
A document seized by police after word of the alleged plot spread through the school shows the two characters standing back to back shooting at aliens, which Gulf Shores Police Juvenile Investigator Billy Berry said represented students.
But Meredith’s lawyer, Ken Raines, said the sketches contradict what the 15-year-old student has told authorities and other students.
“It doesn’t match what the juvenile said one bit,” Raines said outside of court. “It’s just a drawing.”
While police found no list of targeted students, Berry said he believed the threats were real. Both of the teens were arrested March 24.
Prosecutors have said that the 15-year-old confirmed that he and Meredith would have followed through with their plans, according to reports.
“Their goal was to kill more kids than died at Columbine,” Berry testified during a preliminary hearing.
Above the two sketched characters, introduced as evidence during the court hearing, Meredith wrote, “passcode: 4-20-06,” and “concept for the ultimate ‘horror movie.’”
Through that document, Baldwin County District Attorney Judy Newcomb tried to show that Meredith had planned the attack for several months.
In the bottom right corner, Meredith wrote, “meet Sunday, October 9, 2005 for MISSION DISCUSSION.”
The 15-year-old, whose name was withheld because of his age and who was referred to in court by the initials B.R.F. and R.F., told investigators that the words “octo killers” referred to imitations of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine.
Berry told Baldwin County District Court Judge Jody W. Bishop in the preliminary hearing that Meredith and the juvenile had even planned a similar attack a year earlier. According to Berry, the juvenile reported that Meredith had a “rough life” and disliked Gulf Shores High School because of the way other students treated him.
But Raines said that Meredith had made dozens of films and created a character called “Alien Octo” by 1997, before moving to Gulf Shores to live with his grandfather. Raines declined to say when Meredith moved to Gulf Shores or why he was staying with his grandfather.
So far I have yet to see anything to see anything that convinces me that Joe Meredith was planning a school shooting.
Berry said he believed that the teens actually had three plans for the attack.
The first was to pull the fire alarm and shoot students as they exited classrooms, Berry testified. In another plan, the teens would shoot students during a break between classes. The final plan involved Meredith and the younger teen walking through the school corridors in a “Nazi formation” and firing rounds into classrooms before shooting themselves in the library, according to Berry.
What the hell is a “nazi formation”?
Berry also testified that the Gulf Shores police chief’s granddaughter told investigators that she had spoken with Meredith. According to Berry, the girl said that Meredith told her, “R.F. ‘doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut and lie to the police.’”
Not exactly what I would call a credible witness. If Joe Meredith is the criminal mastermind that the prosecution alleges I doubt he would go shooting his mouth off to the police chief’s granddaughter.
Before his arrest, Meredith’s MySpace.com Web site contained references to Nazism, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and April 20, Berry said. Meredith apparently deleted those references after his arrest, the officer said.
I saw Joe Meredith’s MySpace before he was released. I saw no references to Nazism or April 20th. And the only reference I saw to Jeffrey Dahmer was one of those stupid blog quizzes about “What serial killer are you?”.
Throughout the more than 1½-hour-long hearing, Raines tried to point out that the only statements about any such plans came from the 15-year-old, who declined to testify Friday. Raines attempted to paint the younger teen as a liar who had made statements to other students that contradicted what he told investigators.
At one point, early in the investigation, the juvenile told police that the Columbine discussions were meant as a joke.
“It started as a joke, then it got envolved into something more big, then other stuff was said outside of class,” a statement from the juvenile reads.
Raines asked Berry, “In fact, that is a mirror opposite of other statements he has given, correct?”
“Yes,” Berry responded, later saying that he believed the juvenile had lied to police on certain occasions.
And what happened when the 15-year-old was called to testify?
The 15-year-old was called to testify, but instead, through his lawyer, Pascal Bruijn, invoked his Fifth Amendment right, which protects him from having to provide testimony. The juvenile had been brought to the courthouse, but did not appear during the hearing.
When asked why his client would not testify Friday, Bruijn said, “We’ll testify when there’s a jury in the box.”
I’ve heard reports that the 15-year-old’s psychological evaluation pegged him as a pathological liar. That would make sense.
And yet the court thought that there was reason enough to bring the matter to a grand jury.
If this was any more of a railroad it would be on a Monopoly board.
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