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Student Arrested for Writing Essay
mcgrew writes "The Chicago Tribune reports that an eighteen year old straight-A High School student was arrested for writing an essay that 'disturbed' his teacher. Even though no threats were made to a specific person, 18 year-old Allen Lee's English teacher convened a panel to discuss the work. As a result of that discussion, the police were called in. 'The youth's father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now. Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.'"
On the off chance the kid is a nut job I guess you need to check him out. I'm not sure you need to arrest him....
This
I think the various over-reactions to the VaTech tragedy are sad. For example, this and also Yale banning stage weapons. I wonder what was in the essay that made the teacher go bonkers. I guess she should have told her students just to write about fluffy clouds and easter bunny.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
In the aftermath of recent events, such paranoia can be understandable. But then again, even in normal circumstances, I wouldn't expect anything more from the public school system.
I want to read the essay and judge for myself.
FTA:
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone's writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said
If this is true, then the disorderly conduct statute should be declared unconstitutional. If writing something that could disturb any random individual (without directly threatening that individual) is an arrestable offense, then the very idea of free speech is pretty much out the window. After all, if the First Amendment isn't there to protect possibly disturbing speech, what is it there for?
Write a "disturbing story" -> arrest
Write a "dissenting article" -> arrest
Write a "criticism of a politician" -> arrest
Write to expose high crimes of those in power -> arrest
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Side topic:
By the way, ever notice the people's solution to every problem is always arrest?
You know, having a sample of the actual text might help in allowing readers to see what the hell is going on. Without that, it's hard to judge, but I'd say there probably isn't a chance in hell these charges stick at trial, and pretty much certainly not at appeal assuming it made it that far.
I have a BA in English...This sort of BS really makes me angry. The student had every right to express his feelings in writing. To write something doesn't mean you are going to do it.
Given the lack of what I would consider an adequate response (which to me wouldn't have been an arrest, but rather a referal for counseling and a flag against buying weapons in the state gun background check database) they just might- by this very kid.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The story points to them being a "straight A student". What does this have to do with anything? Are they implying that a persons GPA is an indicator of their abilities to shoot others at school?
Just what was the point of that?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
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Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
According to a Chicago Tribune Article today, the assignment directions were to write stream of consciousness and to not judge or filter your writing.
Seems to me this was a smart kid playing games with a stupid touchy feely assignment for a blow-off class his senior year.
Should the kid have been referred to a counselor? Sure.
Should the kids parents been contacted? Absolutely.
Arrested because his thoughts are disturbing? No.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
One of my friends spent a fair amount of time in juvenile hall after his school dean had him arrested for destruction of property with malicious intent.
What actually happened was that he snapped another student's pencil.
the USA's legal system is broken beyond repair.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My friend had a similar situation happen to him after the Columbine High School shooting. He made up a death-list and talked about it to friends and other students in school PRIOR to Columbine. After Columbine, he was picked up by the school administrators and police and spent several days in consoling until they decided that he wasn't serious.
It doesn't matter what the essay says; he couldv'e written about plucking his teacher's eyes out for all I care. He did what the teacher asked him to do, and nobody - NOBODY should be arrested for writing an essay, no matter inflamatory or disturbing it might be.
There are other courses of action to deal with it when someone is obviously disturbed, but really, no matter what he wrote, no matter how vile or stomach turning, it doesn't prove he's even unstable - it only proves he knows how to write to nauseate people.
I mean, have you seen Resevoir Dogs? Would you have had Quentin Tarantino's teacher's put him in a padded cell?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
"as a teacher, don't be surprised on inspiring the first CG shooting,"
"Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s...t...a...b..., puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P 90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did."
This kid was correctly removed from the classroom. He should be examined by psychiatrists and a judgment should be made as to his mental health and well-being. If he is not a danger to anyone, he should be allowed back. This decision shouldn't be left to school officials, but to qualified medical professions.
That being said, this kid sounds like a fuckin nut job.
You didn't even read the article, did you?
Maybe Lee really did have that dream; it's a disturbing enough dream, but how many of us don't have disturbing or even violent dreams? His reaction to it -- "it would be funny if I did" is far too vague. Let the kid talk to a psychologist. He's a teenager. I'm sure all teens could benefit from a few good therapy sessions.
IAALS.
Sadly, actions really don't really speak louder than words where Special Interest Politics are concerned, and so the San Francisco status quo can continue to market itself with terms like "compassion, tolerance, respect". But I would remind those people that it's not really tolerance if you agree with the people you're Tolerating. And, to bring the discussion back to the article, it's not really free speech if you can't write disturbing, mean, or hateful things.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Also, doesn't the US have a constitution which makes freedom of expression an absolute right? "or abridging the freedom of speech" is from the first amendment. The US Constitution doesn't "make" freedom of expression a right, it ASSUMES that it is ALREADY a right that we already have and then protects it. There's a difference.
Because of what he wrote? If we start locking up and examining every person for what they write, we will be in a sad society. I have written some pretty "disturbing" things in my life, but I have never had anyone question my sanity. Some of my pieces have even been published, where not just a few school administrators saw them, but at a minimum tens of thousands of people read them.
I distinctly remember a poem I wrote, where I described in first person the sensation and thoughts of a person committing suicide by jumping. Even my own mother looked at me like I was nuts, and we all joked about how someone might say something, but nothing came of it. People never questioned my motivation or the writing. You know there is this quote attributed to Sigmund Freud, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
I hope the criminal charges against him get dismissed and that he returns to school to complete his senior year. It seems pretty obvious to me that there is a great potential that the decision they made was both racial and reactionary. Neither of which are right.
Before that day a new record was set by a young man. By a young a man who had submitted stories and plays that disturbed his teachers but who took no action.
What if they had?
Well, off course if they had then the shooting would not have happened so those teachers would have been totally out of order for doing something.
The job of the police is to stop crime. No it isn't. The job of the police is to arrest people AFTER they committed a crime. As Terry Pratchett put in a recent Discworld novel "we caught the guy that done it" sounds a lot better then "we caught the guy that looked like he was going to do it" especially if they say "prove it".
BUT that doesn't help much when you got 30 dead.
Saying that those people paid the price of freedom is NOT going to win you any friends.
One /.er posted a link with a small segment of the essay. It seems to me like the typical emo/teenage kid rant. Personally I think hanging is to good for them but sadly I am not the judge.
The point is however that this happened right after a tragedy wich might have been prevented. Do you want to be the person who ignores the warning signs next time? In the the U Sue of All (man that would have my english teacher calling in the special forces)?
But we don't know the whole essay. Most police officers are rather down to earth, they KNOW the world. For them to make an arrest and for it not to be all settled easily alarms me. Slashdot happily tells us that this guy is a straight-A student. That is great because we all know straight-A students do NOT flip out. What I want to know is this, did the police check him out and what the fuck did they find?
Why doesn't slashdot reportd exactly how many guns this person owns (whatever the number may be and remember, zero is an important number) and how many kilo's of ammo he has stockpiled (again remember the humble zero).
Freedom and the prevention of crime do NOT mix. Since most want both, you are going to have conflicts.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And of course, not surprisingly given the news from VA Tech, disturbing things were on his mind.
If a teacher does not know his or her students well enough to deal with whatever comes out of a free association exercise, that teacher has no business giving that kind of assignment. And as far as the state attorney bringing charges, hasnt Florida had enough political embarassment this decade?
The other thing I don't understand is why the teacher read the assignment. Is she this kid's psychoanalyst? Yeah, you do free association as a creative exercise, to loosen up your mental censor so you can find material you wouldn't have found. You then pick over whatever you find to get ideas to write about. You're not supposed to turn in this stuff. It's an invasion of privacy. Nobody has any right to demand an inspection of whatever is in another person's head.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The US as far as I know has never been a free country. Certainly it hasn't in the last 70 years.
Why can the government tell me who or how many people I can marry?
Why can the government tell me what plants I can grow?
Why can the government tell me what substances I can own?
Why can the government tell me how (or if) I should dress?
Why can the government tell two consenting adults what they can do together, or whether they can charge one another for it?
Why can the government tell me what countries I can visit?
I don't know of anywhere that I would really call free, and I am thankful for the freedoms I have. I am also watchful of the freedoms that are guaranteed to me but seem to be slipping. But I would love to see someplace that was really free.
Another 'offtopic' moderation coming my way, I'm sure...
What a great idea. Everyone should keep all of their angst and emotion to themselves. Pent up rage has never resulted in anything detrimental.
Besides that, the jist of your post seems to be, "Just be normal! And if you can't force yourself (i.e. dumb yourself down enough) to think like the masses, just act like you do anyway. Waste your life away being a passive "me-too"-er who never questions the status-quo or gets emotional about anything. It's fun to try to fit in! The majority of America does it, so you might as well do it too, right?"
If you really believe that line of bullshit, then there's not much anyone can do for you. Just go turn your television back on, get another beer, and stop trying to think.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Writing something disturbing is enough to cost you your right to own a gun? Wow...I sure hope Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino aren't avid hunters.
Unpleasantries.
>Also, doesn't the US have a constitution which makes freedom of expression an absolute right?
>>Yes, but that does not exempt you from the consequences of exercising that right.
That's ridiculous! It's obviously not a "Right" if the government can throw you in prison for exercising it!
That being said, this kid sounds like a fuckin nut job.
Excellent knee-jerk reaction for someone having absolutely no context for the writing.
If you made judgement on the writing alone, all of 4chan would be in jail. Look, the kid could have written it specifically to see how the teacher would react, he could have written it to explore things that disturb him in a manner that is safe, he could have been writing it as a joke, or perhaps he wrote it specifically to be disturbing and to invoke that feeling in the reader. Isn't part of art (whether it's writing, painting, sculpture, whatever) to invoke emotion in the reader/viewer?
Your kind of reaction, done with very limited information on the situation, is a perfect example of what's wrong in the world. This need for immediate gratification, in this case by passing judgement so you can now move on to the next topic and not bother with this again.
It's just silly.
People who would MOD me as troll, are Exactly the same type of people
who would have a child arrested for a 'disturbing' paper.
Many of the framers of the U.S. Constitution wrote 'disturbing' papers.
Such MOdders are the exact reason people take the law into their own hands.
Must have been a teacher.
Have you ever read any Edgar Allan Poe? I'm betting if you were educated in the USA, you have, or were at least supposed to have read some of his work. He's easily as twisted, though less graphicly so, and he's considered one of the premiere American writers.
I've read conflicting things that say this was a creative writing assignment and an essay. The two are not synonymous and this small excerpt proves absolutely nothing about the kid's mental stability. It's not even necessarily indicative of a lack of any stability. Plenty of people write about gore all the time. Have you ever seen any movies like Halloween, Hellraiser, Friday the 13th?
Effectively this kid did nothing more than have bad timing with what he wrote. The teacher went way overboard in his/her reaction and should be reprimanded for such behavior. An appropriate response would have been to call the kid and his parents in for a counselling session with the teacher and explain why that type of writing is inappropriate and find out if there is a reason behind the writing. Arrest is completely unwaranted and just shows how ridiculous we have become as a society. Fear is never a good reason for any action unless it's specifically self defense.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I don't see how a criminal charge against him for a non-directed threatening essay doesn't violate his freedom of speech. If that was the case, everybody shouting at a protest would get charged for disorderly conduct no matter what.
And do they really think that 'charging' him rather than seeing if he needs help is the best way to go about this. Charging him with a crime won't do crap. If he needs help, this does nothing. It's like hitting your kid for being bad without understanding why he was bad or teaching him why he shouldn't do it.
-Tony
They're only "straw men" in your mind, and because you don't like them. Had you bothered to look closely, you'd realize that his points are quite valid, albeit intentionally absurd. But they most certainly relate to your points, which are also valid, and only slightly less absurd.
Freedom as you describe it cannot exist in concert with civilization as we know it. That is not because of your points, but because of the ease with which the freedoms you pontificate about are extended to their extreme.
And please do not even attempt to say it wouldn't happen.
Given this as a benchmark, I'd like to suggest that the world keep a very close eye on Mr. Vincent Furnier and Mr. Brian Warner. They have written and published extensively on some very disturbing topics, including drug use, violence against women, violence in families, violence in general, sexual devience, and school bombings. These are the sort of psychopaths that shouldn't be allowed to roam the streets freely.
Given the social climate, and the impressionable minds that such writings might reach, I think it better if they were arrested as soon as possible. Who knows how much of a following they might be able to generate, or what horrendous acts such followers might carry out?
Please, if you see either of these men, let your local authorities know right away.
You should also know that they frequently travel under the aliases Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Sounds like a nut job? To me, he sounds like a teen following the directions of the assignment and trying to determine where the limits lie. While not as well executed, Lee's essay has elements that are similar to sections of T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland, the drug advocacy of Alan Ginsberg, the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Literature is filled with dead people we now refer to as artists and legends who became thus because they explored the dark edges of humanity. Oedipus Rex is all about incest and patricide, the works of Shakespeare are filled with violence, sex, and death. So, take this background, a bright student, and an assignment that instructs the students not to censor themselves, and just what did you expect to come out? No poets get recognized for writing about happy puppies and cute kittens.
Add to that, the only text from the essay I've seen has been excerpted out of context. If I just give you this text "And ate the fellow, raw.", what would you think the poem was about? Perhaps a bit from Silence of the Lambs? A quote from Penthouse Letters? A story about eating octopus? Nope. That's from Emily Dickinson's "In the garden". Context is key to meaning.
Should the teacher have done something? Probably. Should someone have talked with Lee to find out if he really had violent tendencies? Sure. Should they have charged the kid with a crime for following, perhaps to the logical extreme, the explicit instructions on the assignment? Definitely not.
That is interesting. I basically just go on the assumption that everyone is a fuckin nut job. I know I am.
I think the problem is that you assume 'fuckin nut job' is a bad thing. You shouldn't be so quick to judge.
It. Have "it" removed. Remember, you need to dehumanize the enemy to make it easier for the panicy masses destroy them.
Yes, why can't you have a dozen 13 year old wives rolling you joints while you shoot heroin in the nude with a transvestite prostitute you smuggled out of Somalia?
Cause thankfully there are laws against people like that being in my society.
OK. It remind me of the hate law in the EU. People were screaming that such things would not happen in the US, censorship, calling blood on the EU.
And now I elarn today that you can be arrested if you write something which is troubling somebody, and promptly a 18 old was arrested for doing so.
So... Who is the more fucked up ? One country which arrest people which want to cremate/kill/genocide other folk, or police which arrest student for writing an essay calling for killing having sex with body and drug ?
Sound as bad each other IMHO. At least here in Europe we do not have the ILLUSION of having free speech, whereas on the other side of the atlantic, beside free speech being written on a piece of paper, you are as bad or as good off as us...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
One has nothing to do with the other.
But at least now you know the answer to your original Why question: Because the person who responded to your post can't tell the difference but he can still vote.
I don't think any government bigger than a community government should restrict anything that doesn't harm anyone (or have potential for very significant harm... building a nuke in your garage doesn't harm anyone, but the potential's pretty significant). I don't think any government, period, should restrict anything that happens inside your home, with the same caveat as above.
So you're still not letting people do what they want, if you're stopping them from building a nuke in their basement. You're still drawing a line, saying "you can do this, but you can't do that".
So you agree that certain actions should not be allowed. You can no longer argue that people should be free to do what they want, because you don't want to allow that. You're basically back to arguing for each individual action whether it should or should not be allowed.
Several of your original examples easily fall under your "potential for very significant harm". It is only if you do not bother to follow the larger consequences of actions on a societal level that you would not see that.
Stephen King perspective on Mr Cho's writings:
....
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036014,00.html
Basically, what someone writes says little about their state of mind.
I agree 100% with Mr King and add that many people write in order to understand why people do the things they do. They want to see things through their eyes and live through the experiences that lead up to a "nut job end" so that ultimately they can become better more compassionate human beings or better able to see the warning signs when people start to get lost or just to form their own opinions instead of parroting the reaction they're "supposed to have".
The last thing we need to do is to discourage this sort of wisdom seeking. The world is already too full of superficial reactionaries that mindlessly see the world through safe "society approved"[TM] labels like "nut job", "terrorist", "communist", "capitalist", "fanatic", "cultist",
But you can... just look towards Africa. There are places in Africa where you can do ANYTHING you want as long as you can back it up.
Please, this law is not unique in that it leaves room for interpretation. Let's focus on the improper implementation of the law in this case, lest we be required to flesh out all laws to unintelligible legalese.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Why would the authorities be afraid of releasing the essay? They only would if they had something to lose by releasing it. What could they have to lose? Their credibility?
These sort of holes in news stories are what concern me the most. How hard would it have been to quote a suspicious section?
I seriously doubt anyone in the US is in grave danger of having too much freedom.
I'm in between insightful sigs right now...
There certainly are copies of the Bible and other religious texts in public school libraries. Sorry to burst your "I'm a poor oppressed religionist" bubble.
Blar.
This is hilarious!!!! So he got arrested over this? Come on now... When I was a kid I wrote a pretty dark piece in my English class and was praised for my use of metaphor and vivid imagery. They didn't call the cops on me or send me to see the school shrink for a heart to heart. They took my piece for what it was. This essay was just him venting. If they think this is bad they'd most likely die of fright if they were able to read the REAL thoughts of the students. For the most part I feel this kids essay was a critique of his school and society. Nothing here should be raising any red flags. The stuff he put to paper is the same stuff kids say when they talk to each other. This poor kid has learned that when someone asks him to be open it really means "only say nice things." How pathetic.
I agree with you, a teacher being concerned should be taken seriously. As an english teacher receiving a paper from someone can be an insite into someone. The teacher probably has seen hundreds of papers with a simular topic to write about so having one be concerning is a warning flag.
Now the warning flag goes off you don't go have a meeting about disaplinary actions. You have a meeting with the school counceler. You get the student help, if help is refused then you might want to seek some other means to communicate with the student or talk to the parents. If this doesn't work then maybe escalate it higher.
It sounds like the student in this case was not even told about the concerns in the paper, I'm sure this has to do with the recent school shooting. I mean a school teacher felt there was something wrong and had them removed. Good decision, at that point there is no need to involve the police because someone is disturbed. No one was specificly threatened in this case. But the student wasn't even talked to, he was just treated as a criminal.
Its a sad day indeed.
If your writing your personal feelings and handing them in I believe that you are reaching out. The teacher pulled away from the student and betrayed them. Thats the saddest thing you could do. Giving the student some one on one time might have been all he needed. I'm sure that there are millions of students that have gone out and wrote things that could be taken the same way this one was. Only a small percentage of that percentage ever escalate their fealings in the real world. Most of those might have been able to get help if the person reached out to them.
One student's killing spree and we look at this person writings and we all now could predict all human behavior.
Mr. Cho may have written in a disturbing way but there are many other people that have written more disturbing writings and they are famous and rich. A good example is Stephen King. I read many books from him and if it wasn't for his notoriety now we would have arrested him too. There are many writers that write "disturbing", creepy, and strange matters but does that make them killers?
However, we need to look at person's personality and character if they write any "unusual" things as to ascertain if they are really dangerous to society or just have an unusual, macabre, and creative outlet. Most of the people who write this stuff are just doing it for an "creative" outlet and are no harm to no one.
We should look at the person's personality and character and not what they write before we run to the authority and detain unreasonably.
Outside of the "13 year old" and the "smuggled out" part, I don't really have a problem with any of the above, actually. What's wrong with having a dozen partners? What's wrong with rolling joints? What's wrong with shooting heroin (in a criminal sense, not as a medical condition that should be treated)? What's wrong with being in a nude? What's wrong with transvestites? What's wrong with prostitution, as long as it's voluntarily and nobody's forced to do anything they don't want to do (if people *are*, that's bad, of course, but in that case, it's bad no matter whether what they're forced to do is prostitute themselves or something else). And finally, what's wrong with people from Somalia?
As long as everyone involved is an adult and as long as everything's done with the informed consent of everyone involved, I frankly don't see why you should have a right to dictate what others can or can't do. I assume, based on your nickname, that you enjoy coffee. I'm also going to guess (without any basis) that you're heterosexual and not celibate (or that you wouldn't be if you had a girlfriend in case you don't have one). How would you feel if I came along and told you that in "my society", doing depraved things like drinking coffee and having missionary-style sex with your girlfriend are (or, at the very least, should be) illegal? Wouldn't you feel that this is an intrusion into your private matters - that as long as your girlfriend wants to have sex with you, there's no reason why the two of you shouldn't, and that whether you drink coffee or not is noone's business but your own?
Maybe you think that that's not the same, but if you do, you couldn't be more wrong. Freedom is always the freedom of others.
butter the donkey
Who cares about law enforcement? The question is whether he's broken any laws and, the last I heard, writing something disturbing isn't illegal. This is just a bunch of panicky idiots overreacting like they always do. God help us, the morons are running the place.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Mr. Kerouac's idealism is commendable, but not entirely accurate. These misfits of popular lore can both advance and detract humanity. The effects may cancel out, but my own view is that most simply have no effect, being external, and that a very small minority are harmful or helpful. I am sure that the recent murderer at Virginia Tech was a "misfit". So while there is something to what you quote, it is laughably naive.
Assuming the post a bit above yours was actually the real essay, the kid already said he was joining the marines! I say "problem solved", if there was even a problem to begin with. If he really is a psychopath he'll be a war hero sooner or later. If not, he'll get his chance at the stab, shoot, kill game and then he'll find out whether he really enjoys it or not. Chances are he'll piss his pants and cower behind the nearest cover, but time will tell. Either way, I doubt a psychologist would deem him mentally unstable or unfit to own a weapon, and I don't think he really wrote enough to even warrant informing anybody, although I suppose the parents should have the opportunity to know about and read the essay.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling