The Asian American Institute (AAI) announces that it is concerned by the overreaction of the McHenry County State's Attorney office that resulted in the filing of two criminal counts of disorderly conduct against Allen Lee, Asian American high school senior/ Court hearing was set on May 17.
In response to a creative writing assignment, Lee submitted a written essay. After reading the essay, the Cary High School principal contacted the local police who arrested Lee the next morning. Since then, Lee has been kept away from other students and has been charged with two misdemeanors.
Reported Jeff Long, Chicago Tribune (April 27, 2007), Allen Lee, 18, a Cary-Grove 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." Lee wrote passages about "shooting everyone" and having "sex with the dead bodies," according to a disorderly conduct complaint filed April 26 by McHenry County prosecutors, Tom Carroll, the first assistant state's attorney.
Lee's English teacher, Nora Capron, and school officials found the senior's stream-of-consciousness writing so alarming that they turned it over to Cary police, who arrested him April 24 morning while he was walking to school.