Middle-school girl puts "hit list" on an Excel spreadsheet

A "to-kill" list scrawled on scratch paper? Not for this 11-year-old girl; her Excel spreadsheet file, called “Killbook. xls,” apparently was created on a school library computer. (Buffalo News)

Comments

[twerp]

She will be the person who loses it in OfficeSpace2.

[merkin4]

As the VP of financial reporting for the mortgage division of a really big bank, I can offer this:

Don't name the file "killbook.xls". Name it "2ndQ 2004 Operations Forecast v3.xls". Nobody will ever look in a file with that name. Never, ever, ever.

[buddy]

a suspension? ok, i get that. but arrest? c'mon, give me a break. it is pretty bad when you have to find something to charge something with. what is the douchebag thinking... "i want to charge them with a crime so what can i make fit??"

he is jamming a square peg into a round hole. saying that you want to do something illegal is not illegal. saying that you are going to do something can sometimes be illegal. "i want to kill" is completely different than "i plan to kill"

as far the intimidating aspect goes... she never planned to show the list to anyone as far as i can tell. someone had to snoop on her to find it.

[LimeGreenLizard]

This would never have happened if her dad had taught her how to grow pot.

[Lou Sussler]

Buddy's right but we now prosecute thoughtcrimes regularly.

[LimeGreenLizard]

AND LOL@ twerp!

[oldewave]

it's too bad that stuff like this has to be taken seriously now... i'm so glad i'm not a kid today.

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

"saying that you want to do something illegal is not illegal."
----------------

Not to nitpick, but if I sent an email, or even just said to someone I wanted to kill the president, I think I could get in a bit of trouble.

I cannot be charged with what I say I want to do, but I think you can certainly be charged for that expression to do so. And I don't think you want to test that theory either.

[d'ep]

I'm working on Excel spreadsheets right now and I know how she feels. Excel makes me want to kill, too.

[fredzilla]

Excel makes you want to kill, d'ep? I routinely play games with excel, but I see numbers differently than most people. Can't stand math but numbers.. they're beautiful.

[joel]

@ SEMSC more nitpicking...there isn't a person on the planet who hasn't said "I would love to kill that guy/girl/kid". Whether it is the president, your spouse/girlfriend, child, child's friend, etc. You are allowed to say it. The issue would be context. If I am having a discussion via e-mail about my marriage and I say on the e-mail 'I am going to slap her silly', I am not going to be arrested. However, if I am estranged from my wife and in my e-mail I say to her ' the next time I see you I am going to slap you silly', I am in a position of being arrested, or at least bring on a lot of questions.

In this case I believe our society of paranoia caused the powers that be to overreact.

[LimeGreenLizard]

What d'ep said!

Seriously though, seems like a lot of kids and teachers have been eating this girl's dinner rolls.

[Phranqlin]

Ms. Killbook should get together with the girls who made the nasty video about their classmate.

Their next project?

"Mean Girls 2: The Bitches Strike Back"

[pnwgal]

Since she's been suspended for 10 weeks, I wonder if I can get her to come over to my house and go over Excel with me. I can never get Excel to do what I want.

[USMerc]

Quick...Someone arrest me!!!! I've made HUNDREDS of these lists!!! (I never wrote any of them down, but, hey...I've definately thought of them!) We can start with ex-wife 1 and a whole bunch of ex-wife 2's family. (Ex wife 2 is ok...she's not on the list....) Oh oh!!! Now I've done it!!!! AAAaaaacccckkkk!!!! I've written it down!!!! Here come the thought police....hey, wait a minute guys!!!! How's about some professional courtesy???????? Oh, bloody hell.....

[Lambiepie]

I never needed a list, some people you just remember

[Phranqlin]

USMerc, I think you're OK as long as you don't type their names into an Excel spreadsheet and save it on a school computer.

[jojo]

This stuff always reminds me of 'Billy Madison', when he calls and tells the guy he's sorry for the way he treated him in high school, so the guy crosses him off the people to kill list. I keep hearing Adam Sandler say "Glad I called THAT guy" in my head!!

[nellagain]

merkin4
I've had a perfectly awful day and your commentary has just made it considerably less so.

Thank you from the bottom of my Work BreakDown Structure.

[sometimesilie]

hey, Excel can *really* help you stay organized. I use it at work all the time

[sometimesilie]

SESMC said he wants to kill the president! ARREST HIM NOW!

[Sheila]

I am absolutely positive if this 11-year-old girl found herself on someone else's Kill List, she would chuckle indulgently and say, "I understand you don't mean it. Let's have lunch!"

[Reno the pregnant goddess]

I'm with Lambie on this - if you really want to kill certain people there is no need to write it down. You know it, and exactly how you would execute the deed without the need for a note or spreadsheet.

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

SESMC said he wants to kill the president! ARREST HIM NOW!
--------------

Actually that is where I got that point from. I read an account where a conservative who got bent out of shape because of the election, said as much in "water cooler talk" at the office. One anonymous phone call from a co-worker brought the authorities who crawled up her orifices with a microscope. Most likely not charged, but not a barrel of fun either.

[KDP]

I hear "Alice's Restaurant" in the background.

"I want to kill. Kill! KILL!"

[RockyMtnMac]

Sudoku's make me want to kill...

[ReginaFilangee]

But to play devil's advocate, what if the 2 Columbine students' written plans had been uncovered in time to prevent them from being carried out?

[polly]

I remember in sixth grade wanting to hurt a boy who teased me incessantly about my teeth. One day walking home from school not far from his house, I snapped and hit him with my umbrella. He stood up and punched me back unfortunately for him his Dad saw him "hit a girl" I felt vindicated as he yelped in the house

[Arfnotz]

When ever I do this sort of thing, I prefer PowerPoint. The slide transitions are AWESOME!

[lynn]

i have lists of those you want to take down, i also have a list of how to take them down. also, i have a list of people that i will look at, smile and think"ah another m*f* that will be against the wall in the revolution, jakejake".

these lists are in my head, i keep them next to my lists of people i would have sex with...i just have to be careful and not mix the names.

[Charles Brobst]

How very sophisticated and educated and modern our teen aged girls are becoming.
Now if we could only teach them to be humane.
But they know how to use Excel!

[d'ep]

RMM, I love Sudoku! That's just a puzzle--not a stupid Excel sheet.

[chryse]

Sheila--we're talking about an 11-year-old here. So who wants to be in charge of figuring out how to "teach" kids not to feel angry and/or not to sort these feelings out safely in private, whatever the form, so they don't fester and end up as a deadly public manifestation a la Columbine? Yes, it's so disturbing to see an 11-year-old girl organizing her private thoughts using software the school wants her to learn to use. We must of course punish such affrontery. Her only mistake was doing so on a school computer, and that's just a matter of judgment that clearly many adults don't ever learn.
If Toth knows she was just venting, what pressure is he responding to in taking the trouble to concoct something to charge her with? And what is the point being made, and to whom, in the arrest? Something similar happened in my school when I was that age--except it was more like competing petitions, and no death was threatened--and it was sufficiently humiliating and non-habit-forming to have the teacher read out all the signatories' names in front of the class, and talk about why such a thing was immature and unintelligent. Pre-Columbine, of course, but it effectively supplied all the appropriate consequences. Gotta love societal overreactions to normal chldhood feelings. ukh.

[openeyed]

Seem like a good use of learning Excel too me! What's the problem? Anyone with an imagination has thought of a hit list from time to time, totally normal venting. Poor girl!

[outofsalt]

Better living through technology.

Paging Mr. Kafka?

[angrysockmoney is back]

Things to do today
1. create time machine
2. Go back in time and kick the ass of the person(s) who invented the excel spreadsheet
3. Return to today
4. snicker everytime I have to update an excel spreadsheet

[lynn]

LMAS at ADM--please add some of microscoft programmers to that list too...

[Bill Burke]

The big question here: Did she get a grade on her list?

[Sisterblonde]

I'm sure there's a gang out there somewhere who would appreciate her skills :)