Straight A Student Arrested for Writing Violent Essay. Maybe this time they were right?

This kid sounds like a future mass murderer. Maybe intervention can prevent this kid from becoming the next college shooter. By the way is he Korean?

How does a kid think it’s OK to write about that stuff.

“I am all for trying to understand what is behind the intention of his words” No name is a liberal /progressive, can you tell . Does the term “speak your mind” help

This kid sounds perfect for joining the Marines.

“How does a kid think it’s OK to write about that stuff.”

Are you kidding? What country is this in?

You should go read American Psycho. You don’t see them tossing Bret Easton Ellis into jail, do you?

Christ, this is a load of crap. Maybe Minority Report isn’t that far out of line.

This kid’s only crime is his grammar.

But I do take issue with the Chicago Sun-Times headline, “…student’s creative writing violent…” Violent? Okay. Writing? Barely. Creative? Not even close.

This was written by an honors student?

Wait a minute. Did they revoke the Freedom of Speech while I was away?

Why doesn’t this American have it? Was he on American soil?

Well, at least they’re not over-reacting.

I hope he gets a couple million dollars from a lawsuit against the school and police. He deserves it.

#14 – To be fair, you are talking about a particularly British subset of punk called Oi, or sometimes Streetpunk. And many, not all, but many of those bands in that subset were in fact influenced by the philosophies of the Nazi movement and were in fact racist.

Anyway… The kid isn’t talented enough to write a shopping list, and writing that bad deserves jailtime on asthetic grounds alone.

MIght get Straight ‘A’s but clearly not very smart.
“Gee, why don’t I threaten my teacher and classmates with mayhem right after the largest mass murder/suicide in US history?” In print, and presumably sign my name to it… Oh, wait, it’s just a ‘joke’…

I bet he doesn’t get an ‘A’ in this class… just ruined his chance to get into Harvard… or maybe not!

Sorry…didn’t proof read last comment……hire should read high

first…the teacher specifically said “don’t censor yourself”. It was a stream of consciousness inclass writing exercise – not a polished piece. So any critique of his writing skills is pointless.

second…moral of the story…even if the teacher says “don’t censor yourself” do it anyway

third…the kid also wrote a children’s story about a baby Hitler taking over the playground so maybe just maybe he does have some issues and needs help.

fourth…arresting him is not the best way to get him help, but is a great way to play CYA.

fifth…welcome to the thought police!

All in all, it was, just bricks in the wall.

I thought it was a pretty good essay – collegiate material

Sounds like the musings of a well-rounded individual

#20 – first…the teacher specifically said “don’t censor yourself”. It was a stream of consciousness inclass writing exercise – not a polished piece. So any critique of his writing skills is pointless.

No, it isn’t pointless. He sucks. I hack up better prose the morning after a bender.

Seriously, stream or no stream, a good writer doesn’t suddenly lose all grammar skills just because he or she is writing in some half-assed free form mode.

Hell, I write these posts with furious speeds, because I’m typically posting between tasks at work. While I let go many typos, my grammar is generally sound. And I’ve only published one book.

second…moral of the story…even if the teacher says “don’t censor yourself” do it anyway

Wrong… Unless you are going to write a direct threat to your teacher involving gunfire… In which case, right!

third…the kid also wrote a children’s story about a baby Hitler taking over the playground so maybe just maybe he does have some issues and needs help.

You should read the story. That isn’t the writing of children.

fourth…arresting him is not the best way to get him help, but is a great way to play CYA.

Now here, you make a very valid point.

fifth…welcome to the thought police!

I’d agree, were it not for the fact that he made a threat. The bit about shooting up a building in a dream and necrophilia was dumb… The product of a simple mind, but “No quarrel on you qualifications as a writer, but as a teacher, don’t be surprised on inspiring the first cg shooting.” is close enough to being a threat to me. I’d certainly take that very seriously. And I’m about as liberal as they come on this blog.

(please note… I know “and” cannot start a sentence. I don’t care. Like Kirk, I changed the rules.)

Let’s just get it over with, implant thought monitoring chips in peoples head. If that’s too futuristic how about RFID chips?

Sh.t that the only way dumba.s people are going to feel safe. We need security, and we need security now! Freedoms are so so yesterday, they are not cool anymore.

As long as the police don’t bother me (they have no reason too), what do I need freedoms for?

Good thing Stephen King didn’t submit any writings as a kid….

“I’m here to tell you, after 3 years in the Army, he is most assuredly gonna be one royally pissed-off Marine; “You mean I just spent the last three fuckin’ years in the W H A T ? ? ?””

LOL. Yeah, I caught that too.

I’m not an English teacher, but I don’t think this worthy of even a “C-”. Random thoughts do not make a good essay, nor does the imposition of making students write an essay on the spur of the moment. This is a creative writing class, not a journalism class where you are expected to put thoughts in order in a short time and expect some rational thought.

Disqualify the essay from class marks. Discount everything in the essays. Question the whole arrest thing too, especially if he only did what his teacher instructed him to do.

Yup, there goes another couple of teacher’s salaries to defend something before the courts that should never have gotten this far. To mitigate the circumstances, the School Board should immediately apologize and reinstate him.

***

#32, And Larry, if you can’t distinguish between what Don Imus said and what this student was encouraged to write then you need more help. You can’t punish someone for doing what an authority figure told him to do unless it is clearly illegal.

…but to make it in the immediate aftermath of VT demonstrates a level of pathological self-absorption and lack of empathy that qualifies as either (a) psychotic, and / or (b), moronic.

So you are taking one piece of “creative writing” to psychoanalyze the kid? Your statement is merely a quick gut reaction with no basis.

Straight-As???

Again, although I agree the essay is not something to be proud of, I wouldn’t want to judge the kid’s entire academic achievements from this one spontaneous “creative writing” exercise.

I await your tiresome, overly long, boring, irrelevant, intoxicant influenced, babbling tirade.

“I await your tiresome, overly long, boring, irrelevant, intoxicant influenced, babbling tirade. ”

He he.

“Yup, there goes another couple of teacher’s salaries to defend something before the courts that should never have gotten this far. To mitigate the circumstances, the School Board should immediately apologize and reinstate him.”

No one needs to be fired or sued, the teacher did the right thing. Any teacher would and should be a little skittish after the recent events. But this boy knew damn good and well what he was doing. Common sense would come down on the side of caution, not hysteria.

I realize looking back what I wrote in number 11… which was snarky… but I had just read the sample once… When I revisited it later, that when that threat leapt out to me and I changed my tune.

Just think about that line and your reaction if it were written about you.

Although I do still think it was, as it seems things always are, handled sloppily. But this ain’t the kid who called to check on a school closing and got accused falsely of a bomb threat… This is the kid who appears to have actually made a real threat.

If they scare people enough, will people really willingly give up the right to free speech? One essay can get someone arrested? How about checking first to see if this kid owns any weapons, or if he’s been doing any target practice, or making any specific threats.

Given the heightened sensitivity from the recent massacre, he’s probably looking for attention. Maybe it is a cry for help, but who knows? How do you assess who is a genuine threat and who is working through normal-ish angry-at-the-world teen angst? Violent thoughts don’t always equal intent to hurt whereas buying guns and ammunition, or amassing a whole arsenal of weapons, taking target practice, making threats, obsessing over violence, becoming too isolated from other people, those are things that add up. Writing violent stories on their own, not enough to determine future acts of violence. Even owning a gun in the States is not enough to determine future acts of violence. It’s when all those things start to add up that set off alarm bells, not just one violent essay. With all the media saturation of the VT massacre, it probably affected a lot of people dreams and thoughts. If he is sick, then he needs some type of intervention. If he’s troubled and looking for help, arresting him on charges that might not stick (that is if free speech still means anything) might only frustrate him more.

Unfortunately, the kids who do really need the help will probably continue to fall through the cracks because nobody seems to want to invest the time or money to treat them. We live in a world where people want instant results, instant solutions but there aren’t any. Therapy might help but spending half an hour with a Dr. Phil type won’t really change somebody’s life. There’s no follow-up. Throwing them in jail won’t cure them either. The thing is, people always say afterwards that they saw warning signs so lets clarify the signs. Were there multiple signs here?

You all suck and I will kill you

For a hamburger on tuesday

Am I crazy yet?

Good thing Quentin Tarantino and Chuck Palahniuk have already graduated high school.

When did free speech mean there are no connsequences for that speech? and why does everyone assume the kid is guilty because he was arrested? Oh that’s right we don’t believe the system will work right so if your arrestted you are automatically guilty of something, tried then executed. I menat ome on the guy is talking about a school shooting right after the worst one in our history. Teachers etc have to do something about it and that doesn’t mean he is going to jail.

#40 – jumbojs

“Given that there was just a mass murder at a school, I don’t think it was in his best interest to write how funny it would be to kill a bunch of students and have sex with their bodies.”

Amen. Pretty friggin’ idiotic for a ‘straight-A’ student to not figure that out… which, in turn leads to…

“If he wants attention he got it.”

Could be this was the only way he could “ask” for intervention without actually asking for it, and thereby losing face, a major issue for types who obsess about “toughness” and living up to exaggerated masculine stereotypes – like our wannabe Marine here.

“If this was a joke, then he does have some mental problems because what mind thinks that’s funny. … There’s something wrong with this kid.”

Lemme hear ya say a-men!

• • • • •

#35 – Fusion me lad;

I’m beginning to realize that you’re not brainwashed, just naïve. This was a good clue, for me, that you are one of these innocent souls who wants to believe that people mean what they say and are too innocent to understand that baldfaced lying is not only common public behavior, but is, particularly in the case of criminal defense attorneys, a de facto job requirement. No wonder you think Orenthal isn’t a murderer – all those well-dressed, well-spoken, educated men defending him just couldn’t be lying, now could they?

I say all that to point out that you – I realize now, without intention to deceive – just made a thoroughly deceitful defense of this clown’s actions, the exact sort of technicality that lawyers use every day to try to help the guilty escape punishment. Let’s look at it:

“Question the whole arrest thing too, especially if he only did what his teacher instructed him to do.”

See, this is a semantic ruse. You’ve obviously fallen for it yourself, not realizing that it says one thing but implies something else.

“He only did…” WHAT did he do, exactly? He, immediately after a shooting massacre of historic proportions, at a school, suggests, in a
the same setting – a school – committing a shooting massacre. When you use the qualifier “only”, that is to slyly distract from this fact. Only an utter moron or a psychotic would even consider suggesting such a thing at such a time, in such a tragic atmosphere.

No sane, even remotely intelligent person would show such a pathological, inhuman, cold-blooded indifference to such a horrid event, let alone suggest that he would commit the same, exact, monumentally horrible crime against humanity. P E R I O D.

Get this straight: what his teacher instructed him to do, and what you FALSELY IMPLY that his teacher instructed him to do are two completely different things.

When his teacher – or anyone’s teacher, anywhere, at any time – says, “Write whatever you want,” every single sane, intelligent person understands completely well that the normal, societally acceptable bounds of morality are still in place, that 18-year–old English-speaking individuals are rightfully assumed to possess common sense and will not have to have it spelled out explicitly to them that “whatever you want” OBVIOUSLY means “whatever you want, within the bounds of social acceptability, legality and sanity.”

So, sorry, Fusion, but his teacher did absolutely NOT say, “Write absolutely anything under the sun, no matter how socially unacceptable,” and was not expected to do so, since it is already understood by all parties at all times for their words and behavior to stay within that boundary, always and everywhere. And either [a] he knew that and wanted the attention, for whatever motive, which proves him beyond doubt to be of subnormal intelligence – or [b], he was oblivious to that constraint, which is a powerful indication of psychopathic ideation. Since [a] is negated as a possibility by his scholastic record, we are left only with [b], that he is quite possibly a highly dangerous psychopath – a conclusion that would be utterly criminally irresponsible to not act upon.

Grow up, Fusion. The carefully crafted, technically correct and morally 100% incorrect excuses devised by professional deceivers to make money by helping the guilty get away with their wrongful acts don’t have a God-damn thing to do with the truth. I realize you mean well, but you’re a defense attorney’s dream juror, the perfect sucker, taking a contrived, twisted artificial interpretation of the letter of the law over the real-world meaning, spirit and factual intent of the law…

You’re a bright guy, but you’re also a babe-in-the-woods. You obviously know very little about truth and the tools used to determine it – and the people whose business it is to distort and hide it. You should try to pick up at least the fundaments of logic, semantics and probability. A little grounding in abnormal psych would be a great help, too.

This is a sad day.

How you couch potato citizens allow the government whittle away your constitutional rights. Instead of responding in a knee-jerk emotional way with the masses, react with calm reason.

Should someone consult with this kid? Yes.

Should he be arrested or treated as if he were a criminal for excercising the most basic of freedoms of all citizens of this country? NO!

51. “Should he be arrested or treated as if he were a criminal for excercising the most basic of freedoms of all citizens of this country? NO!”

God moron, at least learn about your rights before you make a comment about them. You may have heard the expression that the freedom of speech does not give someone the right to yell “fire!” in a movie theater. It also does not give someone the right to incite a riot. It also does not give someone the right to conspire to commit a crime, e.g., to say, “I’ll give you a thousand bucks if you kill my wife.” And lastly, our freedom of speech does not give people the right to threaten others. To put someone in fear is an assault. (To put someone in fear and touch them is an assault and battery. An assault in and of itself does not require any touching.)

I’m not saying that the poorly written essay was an assault. That’s for either a judge or jury to decide. But an assault is never constitutionally protected.

54. “Quentin Tarantino didn’t graduate from high school. He quit when he was 16.”

Well, that certainly explains a lot!

#32 the usmc wants professional killers, not amateurs.

52.”If my kids tried such a thing when they are of that age they’ll probably evacuate the school and call the FBI.”

I’ve called them, they’re on the way.

#50 – Dude, he’s a highskool kid, cut him some slack

So were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

62. Apparently you have a knack of skipping sentences. Maybe that’s why you’re clueless about constitutional law, you only read what you want to read.

What I wrote was, “I’m not saying that the poorly written essay was an assault. That’s for either a judge or jury to decide.”

What that means is: subjectively, I don’t know if I would have felt threatened, but objectively, it could be determined as a threat by either a judge or a jury. So when both sentences are read together, it means his arrest was proper.

Now Now, just kiss and make up. Stop the hurt!

This is a pure shame, CHO I didnt want to think was a manchurian Canadate to sorts, but this is event more violation of freedom..Thought crimes.. IF this shit were to be going on twenty years ago, David Lynch would be being sodimized by Q.Tarintino while Jon Waters beats his meat to the little guy off of the youtube videos dancing in Bollywood while R,Gere gets arrested.. Not to mention that basketball diary guy, he would be sharing a cell with Sharon Stone wickedly whipping out the lesbonic ax to pick apart the scrotrum of society..

Continuing my thought in 68….

Imagine if the student, instead of writing a threat against a specific person, he wrote a stick-up note for a bank. Describing exactly what the bank teller should do along with exactly what he would do if his directions were not followed.

After getting the “essay” back from his teacher, he uses it to rob a bank. He goes in, hands it to a teller, she pushes the silent alarm, and the kid is immediately arrested.

Here’s the important part: Could the kid argue as a defense any first amendment right to write the note? Nope. Could the kid argue as a defense that his teacher told him “not to censor” himself. Nope.

As I stated, there is no free speech right to commit crimes. Writing a threat against a teacher and then turning that note over to the teacher is an assault. And is no different from handing a note over to a bank teller.

Fusewad, you’ve already passed ‘lame’ way back, you’ve reached ‘truly pathetic’.

It takes a special sort of lint-brained bozo to continually fail to grasp what I, Jerk-Face, OFTLO, mark, Jägermeister, et alia have said, in our own ways.

That teacher was not “inexperienced,” except in your little fantasy world. She offered the same goddam assignment in the same way as countless tens of thousands of teachers have over X-knows-how-many decades – or centuries, more likely – to millions of students. There was no “loaded question,” you crosseyed dipshit. No fucking “rules changed.” What feeble crock of puke are you trying to feed us?

Anyone over the age of 6 who is not mentally retarded or psychotic knows without any doubt whatsoever that when any authority figure says “write / say / do anything you want to,” it always means WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE, WHICH ARE KNOWN TO ALL.

Now go dust off your Reverend Al shrine and pray for a brain. Miracles can happen.

#71, Fishbreath, you are an asshole.

That teacher was not “inexperienced,” except in your little fantasy world.

Maybe you know how experienced she really is. The news article mentions she is in her first year of teaching. That doesn’t sound like experienced to me. But then maybe you know more. You may be psychic, or know her personally, or just like usual, throwing out shit you invented that doesn’t exist anywhere but your sick mind. Why use facts when you can just invent crap.

Anyone over the age of 6 who is not mentally retarded or psychotic knows without any doubt whatsoever that when any authority figure says “write / say / do anything you want to,” it always means WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE, WHICH ARE KNOWN TO ALL.

Do you grasp that, you glue-sniffing, limp-dick imbecile? NO ONE BUT A MENTAL DEFECTIVE WOULD ASSUME DIFFERENTLY.

Gee, no, I don’t know that. So why don’t you tell us what is socially acceptable. Would it be that women have to wear dresses at least 2” below their knees? Would it be that you can’t describe a murder scene in an essay? Would it be that a student can’t wear a black armband to protest something they disagree with? Would it be close to treasonous to oppose the President’s view? What about an essay saying you would like to visit the leader of our worst enemy? What about showing a male breast, a female breast, or (gulp) genitalia? How about a discussion where the issue is tolerance of homosexual? If mass murder bothers you should we allow books that tell of killing everyone on earth excepting those on this boat? So please, PLEASE, tell us again what IS acceptable. We will never ever again make the unforgiving error of crossing the line. (/sarcasm)

Is it only you and neo-con fundys that want your social norms cast in concrete.

And BTW, who the fuck fed you the laughably idiotic idea that a threat has to be ‘direct’? Go learn something factual (for a change) about how ‘threat’ is defined under law, and while you’re at it, ‘intent.’

It sure isn’t your twisted idea. Obviously you have no idea what the law says about a threat. Please, PLEASE show me in his essay where he made an obvious or implied threat. Under the law, the threat must be obvious even if not explicit. He made no threat to the teacher. The reference (I assume) was after several sentences complaining about her cookies and teaching. In order to be a threat, the context must be taken into consideration.

So why don’t you take your own advice and learn a little about criminal law. Unless, your personal experience has given you a jail house lawyer’s …

With your inbred absence of any moral awareness and uncanny knack for cheering-on the wrong team, you really should’ve been a fuckin’ criminal defense lawyer. Seems like every time you open your PC piehole, it’s to spew another feeble excuse for some sorry fuckup, always absolving the mental / moral defective in question of all responsibility for brainless and / or evil deeds they themselves have deliberately perpetrated on others, and instead looking for sly, devious ways of passing the blame off on somebody else – usually, the real victim(s).

Seems that this kid isn’t the only one that has a hard time writing anything readable. They hauled this kid off to submit to counseling. This whole post of yours is so full of violent hatred YOU should be counseled. With all the vitriol you have spewed, you have yet to challenge anything specific. All you can do is scream invectiveness that I am wrong.

It takes a special sort of lint-brained bozo to continually fail to grasp what I, Jerk-Face, OFTLO, mark, Jägermeister, et alia have said, in our own ways.

Don’t insult these fine people. I respect all of them even if I occasionally disagree. You, on the other hand, will never be in their class. You insult them by your attempted inclusion. They are capable of making an argument and sticking to facts. You can’t.

Show me the threat in the essay. The news article interviewed THREE professionals who all felt the charges were silly. Or are they wrong too? Are they lint brained bozos? Or as the student said,:

Lee said Thursday he was “completely shocked” to be arrested Tuesday for his essay, especially because written instructions told kids not to “censor” what they wrote.
“In creative writing, you’re told to exaggerate,” said Lee. “It was supposed to be just junk. . . .
“There definitely is violent content, but they’re taking it out of context and making it something it isn’t.”

#74, I understand what you are saying but, in my opinion, this is still a different scenario then the essay. Our discussion would be direct and we would know if there was anger, hostility, or other emotional speech, and whether a history would give room for concern.

If the student had anonymously or in a fit of anger said this directly to the teacher then yes, I would agree the threat is of concern. Yet, in a Creative Writing class where it is expected to be a work of fiction, then I really have reservations about using those same fictional words to persecute him. Especially when there was nothing else in this kid’s school record (we are aware of) to suggest he is a danger.

We have been focused on one sentence in a poorly written essay to condemn him. I want to think it takes more then that to criminalize a person. As I mentioned in #73, the journalist that wrote the story interviewed three experts. Each expressed some dismay that this should be considered a dangerous criminal act.

Stephan King taught English at a community college when he published his first novel Carrie 30 some years ago. Would you view it the same way if it was published today? (For any reader that didn’t read the book, it is about a High School girl with supernatural powers. She flips out during Prom Night when the school bullies do a nasty prank. Literally, she blows up the whole town, one piece at a time, including the High School. The movie had some decent special effects but missed the subtleties of the characters.)

No, not every single hostile act is truly wrong and criminal. Our dealings with others in society mean we must be able to accept that not everything will be a threat. I don’t want society to come to the point that I need to be extra careful not to bump into someone accidentally because it might be viewed as a threat and have a shoot out.

I don’t know what the big deal is? The kid was supposed to be able to write about whatever he wanted. The teacher simply regrets what he allowed, so why involve the police?

However, if you’re going to kick him out, kick him out for his writing skills, not for the content. Damn…if this moron has a 4.2 then this country is in some major trouble. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily agree with what he wrote but I disagree with punishing him for what he wrote. At least he was being honest which is much more than what I can say for most of America’s writers.

Creative?
Work of fiction?
What you guys are defending is a sub-literate rant that even Usenet Trolls would be embarrassed by.

For the last time before this thread drops off the page and I chose to forget it forever… If you make a threat of violence, there will be ramifacations. Call me when a First Amendment issue is posted.

I read another blog with comments from Lee himself and students that go to his school. A white kid wrote and presented an essay in which he stated individual students he would kill if/when he shot up the school. Nothing was done. Several kids who go to Lee’s school commented on this – including the kid who wrote that essay. This was a few weeks before VA Tech and Lee’s writing was after, but WAY less incriminating.

Before we judge Lee for his writing, we have to know what the precedent was for acceptable writing in the past. VA Tech does not CHANGE what people can write. If the white kid who NAMED STUDENTS HE WOULD KILL AT HIS OWN SCHOOL AND IN THEIR PRESENCE was not arrested (and that, friends and neighbors, is what I would call a threat), then the VA Tech incident shouldn’t have changed things for Lee.

Cho (the VA Tech shooter) had a history of strange behavior and mental illness. Nikki Giovanni stated that she had him thrown out of her poetry class because other students were uncomfortable with him. Two female classmates reported him for stalking, but decided not to press charges. There is a trail with him.

Lee has never been in trouble before and has an A average.

If you can’t or won’t see the difference, you’re a moron.

Nora’s not much of a teacher is she?