A Massachusetts mother is outraged after messages in support of her son’s alleged killer ended up in the local high school’s yearbook.
Heidi Kimborowicz has started a petition and protested outside Dracut Town Hall in an effort to get Dracut High School’s yearbooks reprinted.
Kimborowicz’s son, Adrian, 20, was shot in nearby Lowell in September of last year, NBC Boston reported. He died in October, and his former Dracut High School classmate, Christian Lemay, 18, was charged with armed assault with intent to murder in the killing.
Two students wrote in their yearbook captions: “Free mello,” using Lemay’s nickname.
“I just, I couldn’t even believe that that was allowed,” said Kimborowicz. “How did you let that get by?”
Kimborowicz posted screen grabs of an email that she says Dracut High School Principal Richard Manley sent her apologizing. He said the yearbook adviser was “unaware of any reference to which the post referred.”
“The quotes submitted by students are reviewed carefully by the editors and advisors, but this reference was not known at the time of the review, and unfortunately not edited out of the book,” Manley wrote.
“‘Free anyone’ should have raised a flag,” Kimborowicz countered.
Kimborowicz also got an apology email from Dracut Public Schools Superintendent Steven Stone, who said stickers would be mailed to students who had received yearbooks so that they could “apply the overlays so that the language may be stricken from individual books permanently.”
The books, he said, “have been personalized between classmates and are the property of the individuals who purchased them.”
“IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!!” Kimborowicz wrote on Facebook, adding that she was offended the superintendent chose to contact her via email and not with a phone call.
Messages for both Manley and Stone went unanswered Friday.
Kimborowicz’s petition to reprint the yearbook had more than 2,000 signatures Friday afternoon.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
