Charges dropped for student who wrote violent essay

May 24, 2007
Illinois high school senior had been arrested after his writing alarmed school officials.

Prosecutors have dropped charges against a senior at Cary-Grove (Ill.) High School who was arrested after writing a violently descriptive class essay. Attorneys for Allen Lee, 18, say he will focus on re-enlisting in the Marines, which had canceled his enlistment when he was charged. Lee, who wrote the essay shortly after the massacre on the Virginia Tech campus, had been charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct.
Click here to read The Chicago Tribune article.

Earlier: The lawyer for a Cary-Grove (Ill.) High School senior who wrote a violently descriptive class essay is confident that charges of disorderly conduct against him would be dropped, even though prosecutors won't make a final decision until next week. Prosecutors stopped short of saying they would dismiss the charges, but Allan Lee returned to school two weeks ago, and the school has concluded that he is not a danger to himself or others. The misdemeanor charges put Lee in an international spotlight and jeopardized his dream of becoming a Marine.
Click here to read The Chicago Tribune article.

Allen Lee, who was arrested and removed from Cary-Grove (Ill.) High School over a essay he wrote that was filled with violent images, remains sequestered from his classmates, and his attorney says legal action may become necessary if the senior isn't back in class this week. Lee has not been suspended or disciplined but is being taught off-campus because of what school officials call safety concerns.

Click here to read The Chicago Tribune article.
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RELATED: In the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, creative writing teachers across the country have been wondering what they would have done if the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, had been writing troubling stories in their classrooms. Perhaps no other teaching position offers as intimate a perch into the hearts and minds of students--and poses as many difficulties. These teachers ask students to write stories that reflect the wider culture or their own interior life, and the picture is not always pretty.
Click here to read The New York Times article.

After listening to two Cary (Ill.) residents speak in support of a Cary-Grove High School senior whose essay resulted in a disorderly-conduct charge and his removal from school, the school board met in closed session without taking any action on his future. The lawyer for Allen Lee, 18, says he hopes the student can return to school as quickly as possible and graduate as scheduled May 26. Lee is being tutored in a district office away from the school. During a creative-writing class April 23, students were given a writing assignment in which they were told not to censor or judge what they wrote. Lee's stream-of-consciousness essay included references to "shooting everyone" and "having sex with the dead bodies." School officials turned the work over to Cary police, who arrested Lee.

Click here to read The Chicago Tribune article.

A Cary-Grove (Ill.) High School student charged with disorderly conduct for writing a violently descriptive class essay had received an assignment that said: "Write whatever comes to your mind. Do not judge or censor what you are writing." Allen Lee, 18, responded with passages about "shooting everyone" and having "sex with the dead bodies." Lee's lawyer says the essay's content fell within the parameters of the assignment.

Click here to read The Chicago Tribune article.

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