Police released portions of an essay used to charge a Cary-Grove High School (IL) student with disorderly conduct, leaving several experts puzzled at an arrest based on such schoolwork. Allen Lee said he was "completely shocked'' to be arrested Tuesday for his essay, especially because written instructions told kids not to "censor" what they wrote.

Student discharged from Marines after essay :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

I agree with the article saying that the athorities should have been the last thing on the list this kid would have to face. Its creative writing, freedom of speech and he even said that the teach told them not to "censor" their writing. If anything the teacher should be repramanded for it not the kid.
Yes I agree though that the subject he wrote about couldnt of come at a worse time and he could of picked something else but didnt. And when they said that this was somewhat a case of racial profiling because of the VT person was bad too but there are gonna be people going either way because of that.

I find him being kicked out of the Marines and school for this essay to be complete crap. Yes he should of been counseled for this, yes he should have a talk with his parents and junk, yes i even think he should of been suspended for like a day or 2 for this because of the subject it was on. But dont go jumping to conclusions on this essay when the teacher basicly says DO What You Want.

Wow. Okay, the kid was a real sicko for writing about what he did, but seriously, exactly what crime is being committed here? An obvious violation on his rights to free expression here, even if it wasn't a "creative writing". I might understand the school and the Marine Corps being concerned and maybe their rights as organizations to punish him in their own jurisdiction (maybe suspension from school, and in this case refused admittance to the Marine Corps)....but criminal charges? That doesn't seem right. Not right at all. There must be something missing from this story...

I think the boy had a right to write what he wanted. Fiction is fiction. I think this may point to some problems the kid has but that is not reason to take such actions against him.
Could this kid need counselling? Probably yes. Should he have been made to get it? Yes. Writing about shooting up his school was a bit much.
Half the writers in the world would be locked up if this was reason to be arrested.

As you say, fiction is just that, and although it is a weird subject to write about, it in no way proves any propensity to violence, imo.

I agree, perhaps some counselling, but to be arrested and chucked out of the Military seems way over the top.

I found the article to be a bit confusing as all of the quotes from the paper were taken out of the context in which they were written such as:

Meaning that he didn't have the dream? Or that in his dream he didn't have sex with the dead bodies?

And this:

Was he referring to inspiring one of the kids to write a creative writing essay on a school shooting or a real-life shooting?

Is it possible, as this kid was going to be in the Marines, he was having dreams of death and violence, or at least was thinking in the back of his head about these things? As an adolescent, don't kids have dreams about sex, and they think about sex a lot? Isn't it possible the two intertwined and the dream, or it's fictionalized account really meant nothing at all?

I don't necessarily think this kid got what he deserved. I think it shows that we as a nation have come to have a warped idea of what reality is.

Being in the military is a violent career, filled with real death and destruction, true violence. We encourage our youth to be non-violent, but then we hypocritically encourage them to join the military, to kill or be killed.

Mixed messages folks.

My firszt thought was "What is Marlyn Manson was in school today. My second thought "this young man should sue"

As may be apparent without my even writing it, I find it absurd that this kid was punished in any fashion for his creative writing assignment. The only rational argument one might be able to bring up is that this assignment's content is not appropriate for a school setting. However, that argument is invalidated by the fact that the teacher told the students not to censor their work.

I further do not believe his paper suggested any abnormality or tedency toward violence at all. Topics of conversation much more absurd than the words of this essay are a regular occurrence among some of my friends (who I currently live with), an they aren't at all inclined toward violence in any fashion. They just find it fun to joke about.

The authorities are wrong for arresting a student who committed no crime, and for kicking that student out of the marines and school for having committed no crime. They should be held accountable for this.

Well, I guess crime writers must be getting worried then. They write about violence all the time!