POSTED BY

Rob Beschizza

AT 7:16 AM
Tuesday August 18, 2009

Dumb

hoaxes

Man fakes webcam suicide

When Joseph Shepherd decided to fake a webcam suicide, he didn't expect to get arrested. But that's what N.Y. State Police officers did after Interpol spotted the public stunt in a web chatroom. Heres WKBW, from Lockport, NY:

Individuals that run a chat room website contacted the local authorities in England and stated that several members that were in the chat room observed Shepherd apparently commit suicide via webcam. Interpol London was in turn contacted by local law enforcement in Gwent England and advised them that a white male had committed suicide while broadcasting his webcam over the Internet.

When contacted by troopers, Shepherd was found to be "in good health and not deceased," and promptly booked for second-degree Aggravated Asshattery.

Here's the rule on hoaxes: would it be cool if Borges had done it? If not, don't do it.

STATE POLICE ARREST LOCKPORT MAN FOR HOAX WEB SUICIDE [WKBW via Giz]

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15 Comments

Anonymous Anonymous

#1 – 7:53 AM August 18, 2009

Gwent is in Wales, not England.

vamidus

#2 – 8:37 AM August 18, 2009

I can see how it's wrong, stupid and irresponsible.. but is it really illegal? Should I now make my stabbed corpse costume for Halloween look less realistic?

joeposts

#3 – 9:10 AM August 18, 2009

Vamidus - only if you go out November 1st and lie in the street, waiting for someone to call the authorities. Basically wasting EMS time is and should continue to be a crime. It's like a fake 911 call or a yanking a fire alarm.

Jim

#4 – 9:31 AM August 18, 2009

"Gwent, England?"

FFS.

Anonymous Anonymous

#5 – 9:33 AM August 18, 2009

It is not a crime to waste ems time, etc unless they prove it was your intent to do so. Many times simple misunderstandings / misinterpretations result in calls to emergency services by concerned people erring on the side of caution all the time but when the person thought to be hurt is found to fine no one is arrested unless they think they can make a case for one of the involved parties intentionally wasting their time (caller or 'victim'). A little checking finds that many times the charges are eventually dropped if the "guilty" party puts up a real legal fight since it is often a hard case to make.

Cops have been called over realistic halloween displays before (think it may have gotten BB coverage as well)

guy

#6 – 9:56 AM August 18, 2009

umm... who's borges?

phisrow

#7 – 2:28 PM August 18, 2009

I wonder if he was just being a dickhead, or if he'll be joining the illustrious "mentally ill and in prison" population...

mudpup

#8 – 2:50 PM August 18, 2009

Here's the rule on hoaxes: would it be cool if Borges had done it? If not, don't do it.

Borges done it?
Right over my head.
Borges the poet?
Garden of Forking Paths?
Maybe I should read more.

captain

#9 – 6:08 PM August 18, 2009

what a f***k! i think it's not very funny.

JPW

#10 – 7:16 PM August 18, 2009

Ironically, Lockport NY is precisely where Yahoo! just broke ground for their most ambitious data center, powered by the Mighty Niagara.

Until this, it was American corporations committing suicide along the Niagara Frontier. . . .

Anonymous Anonymous

#11 – 4:03 AM August 19, 2009

Wikipedia has a list of Borgeses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borges_%28disambiguation%29) but none of them seem to be well known for any hoaxes.

Rob Beschizza

#12 – 7:15 AM August 19, 2009

You guys should consider reading something other than the Internet.

Anonymous Anonymous

#13 – 8:37 AM August 19, 2009

I believe the illegality has more to do with the presentation than the video itself. You can search YouTube and others to see scores of fake snuff films or suicide films.

Anonymous Anonymous

#14 – 8:43 AM August 19, 2009

*groan*

rick386

#15 – 6:30 PM August 19, 2009

i think it's just too funny. don't believe anything you hear and 1/2 of what you see, especially on the internet. How many people believed the Blair Witch Project was a documentary?
Also, why get involved and call cops? You don't know the guy, and if he's already dead, there's no emergency. Someone will find him later.

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