This comes in the wake of the Virginia Tech Massacre. A student with straight As across the board, a GPA of 4.2, a place on the school wrestling team, and a plan to join the marines was arrested on Tuesday for creative writing.

18-year-old Allen Lee, of Cary-Grove High School in Chicago, was given an assignment to write an essay about anything he wanted. What he chose to write so disturbed his teacher, the school principal, and police that he was arrested under charges of disorderly conduct. The English teacher who raised the alarm, whom the school will not name, has created a most bizarre situation showing that great levels of paranoia and fear are running through some American school campuses at the moment.

Lee faces a possible $1,500 fine and 30 days in prison. This comes from the Chicago Tribune:

Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge against Lee was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.

Disorderly conduct, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is often filed for such pranks as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911 unnecessarily, he said. But it can also apply when someone’s writings disturb an individual, Delelio said.

It is amazing to think that you can be arrested in Cary for writing something that “disturbs an individual”. The essay in question depicted violence and drug use and a dream about a shooting spree and necrophilia. Nothing in Lee’s past suggests that he would ever actually do any of these things. The clincher of his essay seems to be the line: “…as a teacher, don’t be surprised on inspiring the first CG school shooting.”

While perhaps not in the best of taste, is an essay such as this one really something a student should be arrested for? Lee has since been removed from his classes and is being taught alone in a separate building to his classmates. He should have known better than to write what he did, but is his punishment justifiable?

A friend of Lee’s, Jameson Emling, said that six weeks earlier, in the same class, he had given a talk about being a hitman and which of his classmates he would shoot. He was neither punished nor arrested.

Teachers at public schools in America are “mandated reporters”, meaning that if they see or hear anything that may pose any sort of threat to other students, they are required by law to report it to superior who can then decide whether to take action. The teacher was only doing her job, but that doesn’t stop the situation from looking somewhat farcical. The police did not need to be called.

Techno’ tags: America, Virginia Tech, Allen Lee