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The American Civil Liberties Union has sued a school district, a sheriff and several others over the arrest of a teen who was expelled after uploading a "Walking Dead" video showing him shooting virtual zombies in his Southern Indiana high school.

Sean Small's First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated in the arrest and in the aftermath, when he was taken to jail and later expelled from Scott County High School, the lawsuit says. Small also has suffered emotional and reputational harm, it says, and the expulsion and disciplinary record are likely to cause him harm in the future.

Lawsuits represent only one side of a case. Scott County School District 2 did not immediately have a comment Tuesday afternoon.

Small, 18, was arrested in August 2018 after using the "Walking Dead: Our World" smartphone app and video game to create a first-person computer-generated video of himself walking through the halls of the school while shooting virtual zombies. The video was posted with the caption, "Finally something better than pokemon go," a reference to the popular Pokemon GO smartphone game that uses a similar first-person location-based interface.

Small was subsequently pulled from class by a sheriff's deputy and two school administrators, the lawsuit says, after a student accused him of posting a threatening video. He was searched without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, arrested and held in the local jail's solitary confinement quarters for two days before an initial hearing took place, at which point he was released, the suit says.

Criminal charges of intimidation filed against Small were dismissed in April 2019. He completed his remaining high school credits through the Indiana Virtual Academy.

The lawsuit claims Small, who had recently returned to school following basic training with the Army National Guard, was not in violation of school rules when he created the video in the school's cafeteria. At no point in the video did he appear to point a gun or fire at real people, the lawsuit says, and a caption displaying the video game's logo was visible the whole time. Playing the game and posting the video to social media, which is encouraged by the app, constitutes "expressive activities," the lawsuit says.

Small offered to show administrators the post, but they didn't watch it, the lawsuit says. He was expelled days later, in September 2018.

Alleging false arrest, false imprisonment and negligence, the ACLU's lawsuit requests a jury trial and for all official and unofficial records of the incident to be expunged by the school district. It also requests damages awarded to the plaintiff and attorney fees paid.

Along with the school district and county sheriff's office, the lawsuit also names Ric Manns and Jeff Cox, who worked at the school, and Joe Baker, the deputy who made the arrest.