16 year old arrested for.. a myspace photo.Follow

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/02/23/myspace.guns.ap/index.html

For anyone with more legal background than I have (so anyone!), a question.

Colorado law establishes exemptions for minor possession of a handgun on the real property of a parent, guardian, or grandparent, with their consent.

I assume the police in this story got a search warrant based off the photo - I can't see them arresting someone just off a photo on the interweb. But, how would probable cause to get the warrant have been established barring flat out asking the parents?

Well, at least he doesn't have any real life friends to go shooting with.

...wait, is that a good thing?

Sounds like it makes for a good story, but I can't imagine what the charge for it might be.

Generally speaking, officers requesting a warrant must submit to a magistrate an affidavit containing sufficient facts and circumstances to enable the magistrate to make an independent evaluation of probable cause. See US v. Ventresca, 380 US 102 (1965). For example, the officers cannot merely present their conclusion that probable cause exists. If the officers’ affidavit of probable cause is based on information obtained from informants, its sufficiency is determined by a totality of the circumstances. Illinois v. Gates, 462 US 213 (1983). The affidavit only needs to contain enough information to allow the magistrate to make a common sense evaluation of probable cause (i.e. that the information is trustworthy).

In this case, it seems that the informants were parents of Evergreen High School students. Their sworn statements of seeing the teen in “photographs posted on the boy's profile on MySpace” would provide the basis for probable cause. The fact that “one photo allegedly showed him lying on a floor surrounded by nine rifles” allows for the inference that the teen may have been in possession of other weapons, such as handguns (which is the basis for the charges). The basis of the warrant need not have been possession of a handgun by a minor. It may have been something far broader and the search warrant may have been issued under the auspices of some general criminal statute in Colorado. Furthermore, the fact that this took place “in the same district as Columbine High School” would add a sensitivity aspect to the “totality of the circumstances” surrounding the case and perhaps lower the scrutiny given to sworn statements from the parents of students. Finally, if the police had asked the defendant’s parents and they had agreed to a search, no warrant would have been needed in any case. It should be noted that the CNN article does not remark whether a warrant was obtained.

This case reminds me of Kate Moss possibly facing drug charges in the UK based on that video of her snorting some blow.

People in Colorado, especially in the Denver-metro area, are a little leary of High School kids with guns. At least, ever since the whole Columbine thing happened. During that instance, there were warning signs that those two boys were trouble, and they weren't acted on. I imagine it'll be a long time before that happens around here again.

The kid is a dumbass, plain and simple. Maybe this will wake him up.