Walking Over Allen Lee

Maybe I’m missing something.

Maybe 18-year old Cary-Grove High School student Allen Lee is so important that his actions deserve to be foisted by the Chicago Tribune on the brains of readers all over the metropolitan area.

Again and again and again.

Allen Lee’s essay has been featured on the front page of the Chicago Tribune THREE days this past week.

Does that strike anyone but me as overkill?

Or is the Tribune’s attempt to attract a younger readership?

Not to be outdone, two Chicago Sun-Times columnists weighed in with ridicule Sunday.

Mark Brown might have discerned the motivation:

He’s got a 4.2 GPA and probably doesn’t think he’s going to get much benefit from these last few weeks of school. So, he got an assignment he didn’t lie, and he acted out.

Can you remember how irrelevant the last few weeks of high school were?

And were you going into the Marines or onto college?

Brown also hits on the racism angle (as does Neil Steinberg) that I touched on yesterday in "Walking Over Allen Lee":

Unless somebody is holding back some important fact, this young man is getting a raw deal. He doesn’t belong in the criminal justice system. And the main reason he was treated this way is that people are on edge because another young Asian-American student killed 32 people two weeks earlier in Virginia. (emphasis added)

Brown is not kind to McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi:

Maybe you are from the better safe than sorry school of thought.

If so, you have a champion in McHenry County State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi, who told me Friday,

“If all of us hadn’t acted, we would be subject to criticism for not acting. We’ll never know if we saved lives in this situation.”

Oh, that’s cute. Well, then, Lou, maybe you should try to figure it out, because if lieves were truly in danger, then you haven’t really saved anybody yet with your disorderly conduct charge, which only served to muddy up the reputation of an 18-year old who was back out on the street a few hours later.

Neil Steinberg lists six reasons for Allen Lee’s arrest:

1. Lee’s essay contained disturbing, violent images.
2. There was a massacre at Virginia Tech two weeks ago.
3. Lee is Asian, like the Virginia Tech gunman.
4. Lee’s teacher is inexperienced.
5. Her superiors suffer from the advanced form of stupidity particular to school district administrators.
6. Bumbling “where’s-the-bullet-Andy?” police work by the suburban cops.

Nothing more need be said. Lee, the supposed culprit, is actually the only one who has a valid excuse, bring 18 and green in judgment. The charges against him of course will be dropped, as soon as anyone with a brain gets involved.

More, of course, at McHenry County Blog.