“Blood, Sex And Booze”
Break out a pen and paper and give this a try. Would someone think you’re crazy?
Assignment: Free Writing: Write whatever you want. Do not stop writing even if you write that you “don’t know what to write”. Do not censor yourself. Swear words are okay. This is free thinking writing, the pen should not be lifted from the paper to ponder your thoughts.
So a straight A student (4.2 GPA) who is popular with the other students, attends school functions and is on the wrestling team follows the instructions.
First he writes “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 P90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did.”
“Blood Sex and Booze” is the title of a song by the band Green Day.
The assignment is given shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings. Perhaps it’s on the minds of tens of thousands of students in institutional settings.
Allen Lee, a student at Cary-Grove High School in suburban Chicago Illinois was arrested and charged this week with disorderly conduct for doing his assignment. The teacher told students: “Be creative; there will be no judgment and no censorship”.
Apparently the teacher did make a judgement after all. She was sufficiently disturbed enough that it constituted disturbing the peace in Illinois.
Allen was enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was going to graduate with honors. All of this is up in the air now.
My gut tells me this is a good kid that trusted his teacher and wrote something stupid. Perhaps what was on his mind but not what was in his plans. The sections of the essay that I was able to read had the quotation marks in all the proper places. No threats were made specifically. This is no psychotic killer.
Obviously, my last sentence is based on my own judgement. I could be tragically mistaken. I don’t know. No body knows. Was the next mass murderer stopped before he could do something terrible or was a good kid who likes Green Day and watches the news caught in a net of over reaction? I think the later is probably the case. I don’t think this kid is going to go out and start shooting people.
Someday, someone is going to get to say “I told you so.” I hope to god it’s me.