|
The School Shootings Report Part II, written by Freydis
Two categories of school
shootings: Class A and Class B
It's important to distinguish between two
categories of school shootings. The first class of school
shootings are the ones perpetrated by students at their own
school and against other students of faculty. I’m going to call
these events ‘Class A’ school shootings. Class A events are
the primary focus of research in this ongoing report.
The second category are the school shootings done by outsiders
(non-students or faculty) who come to a school ground, for
various reasons, with the intent of perpetrate a crime. I’m
going to call these ‘Class B’. In the future if these events
become too numerous I may have to remove them from the report,
or put them in a separate location.
Risk Factors
Post-event
interviews of students and faculty regularly express stunned
surprise that a shooting occurred at their school with typical
statements like ‘we thought it was a joke’ or, ‘it didn’t seem
real’. Yet as the reader can see here school shooting events cut
across most all social boundaries transcending race, class,
religion and age, and have occurred across the globe from
Australia to Finland. A student shooting can occur at
your school - don’t expect that it won’t and don’t wait for it
to happen!
Although Class A
school shootings have many elements in common several critical
factors significantly increase the likelihood of a violent
outburst at school. After studying
numerous examples of these events I, Freydis,
have developed these ten primary risk
factors useful in identifying a potential school shooter:
|
1. Male
2. Age 14-20
3. Troubled
Home Life
4. Mental
Health Problems
5.
Pyschotropic Drugs
6. Bullied by
Others
7. Poor
Academic Performance
8. Social
Fringe/ Rejected by Peers
9.
Suspension/Graduation Timeframe
10. Frequent
Anger/Rage |
SCHOOL SHOOTINGS 1997-2004
 Where:
Pearl High School, Pearl Mississippi
When: October 1,
1997
Who:
Luke Woodham 16, Justin Sledge 16, Grant
Boyette Jr. 18 and co-conspirators:
Donald P. Brooks 2d, 17; Wesley Brownell,
17; Delbert Shaw, 16; ; and Daniel
Thompson, 16.
Killed and
Injured: 2 killed, 7 injured
The shooting by Woodham was primarily
aimed at a former girlfriend, but wider
issues were blamed in the 'manifesto'.
Speculation centers on a group (Woodham,
Sledge, Boyette) that may have set it up.
That they were Satanists appears to be
another media myth. Woodham had no police
record or law problems. One note: An
assistant principal used a gun from his
car to immobilize the shooter while
waiting for the police to arrive.
-
Class A event
-
Multiple
shooters
-
Planned
action
-
Relatives
executed
-
Religious
-
Animal
torturer
-
Social
fringe
Where:
Heath High School, Paducah Kentucky
When: December 1,
1997
Who:
Michael Carneal 14, Freshman
Killed and
Injured: 5 killed, 3 wounded
Shot into a before school prayer group.
Claimed not to have any motive or
religious angst, merely that the group
was a convenient target. The Principal
had no previous problems with Carneal.
Stole guns from a neighbor. Carneal,
pleaded guilty but mentally ill to three
counts of murder for killing Hadley, 14,
Jessica James, 17, and Kayce Steger, 15,
on Dec. 1, 1997. He was sentenced to 25
years in prison without the possibility
of parole. But will a lengthy prison
sentence cure him of
his mental illness ?!
Where:
Westside middle school, Jonesboro
Arkansas
When: March
1998
Who:
Mitchell Johnson 13 and Andrew Golden 11
his cousin.
Killed and
Injured: 5 killed, 10 wounded
Johnson
moved from Minnesota with his mother recently after his
parents divorced. "He swore he
was with the Bloods, and he wore red all
the time. He was always threatening and
getting in fights." They
skipped school, drove a van there and
with the aid of an accomplice set off a
fire alarm during lunch and shot people
from the woods as they came out ambush
style. Three rifles and four handguns
were stolen from Grandfathers house. The
motivation "was just to
scare his classmates" which
fits in with the descriptions of Mitchell
and his bullying / gang threats.
-
Class A event
-
Multiple
shooters
-
Middle
class
-
Psychotropic
drugs
-
Religious
Where:
Parker middle School, Edinboro
Pennsylvania
When: April
1998
Who:
Andrew Wurst 14
Killed and Injured:
1, 3 wounded
Wurst shot a science teacher/chaperone at
8th grade graduation dance. Motivation is
unclear but Gillette, the teacher, was
intentionally singled out and shot.
 Where:
Thurston High School, Springfield Oregon
When: May 20-
21, 1998
Who: Kipland Kinkel,
17
killed and Injured:
27 shot 2 dead (+ 2 Parents)
After "shaming parents" by
getting expelled for having a stolen
pistol in his locker Kinkel murdered his
parents. The next day he drove to school
and went on a rampage. His parents were
both teachers, William Kinkel, 59, and
Faith Kinkel, 57. November 10, 1999: Kip
Kinkel sentenced to 111 years prison
despite documented schizophrenia. How a
long prison term will help him or society
is your guess.
-
Class A event
-
Single
shooter
-
Affluent
community
-
Affluent
kids
-
Psychotropic
drugs
-
Planned
action
-
Occurred
near graduation
-
Relatives
executed
-
Animal
torturer
Where: Columbine
High School, Littleton Colorado
When: April 20,
1999
Who: Eric Harris
18 and Dylan Klebold 17
Killed and
Injured: 13 (+ 2 suicides)
Does anyone
not know anymore? "Police said the
pair, enraged by what they considered taunts and insults
from classmates, rampaged through their school with guns
and bombs before turning their weapons on themselves."
According to the AP anyway. There is no evidence they
called themselves the 'Trenchcoat Mafia' nor that they
were racist in any way.
|
|
 |
 |
|
Eric
Harris |
Dylan
Klebold |
Columbine High
School is now closed every April 20th.
 Where:
Heritage High School, Conyers Georgia
When: May 20, 1999
Who:
Thomas J. Solomon Jr. 15 sophomore.
Killed and Injured:
6 injured no deaths.
"T.J. Solomon
was taking Ritalin when he began to shoot
at his classmates in Georgia," says
psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin. Nathaniel
Deeter, 15, said the gunman had broken up
with his girlfriend three weeks ago and
since then had told Deeter, "I have
no reason to live anymore."
"I told him he was crazy,"
Deeter said. "I thought he was just
feeling sorry for himself because a lot
of kids feel like that."
-
Class A event
-
Single
shooter
-
Affluent
community
-
Secured
& monitored school
-
Occurred
near graduation
-
Not
planned
Other Cases
Where: Lincoln
County High School in Fayetteville, Tennessee
When:
May 19, 1998
Who:
Jacob Davis, 18
Killed and Injured:
1 - Robert "Nick" Creson, 18
shot in a parking lot behind Roy Clark
Field House
Creson died about 15 minutes after being
brought to the hospital. According to
police, student, shot Creson in a dispute
over a girl. This case like several
others is more a person-person dispute
that just happened to occur on school
grounds and is not the same massacre-like
act seen at Columbine and Thurston High.
More
commonality...
-
All
in public schools
-
All
in suburban or rural areas
-
All
shooters white males
-
Each
was a revenge act to repay
perceived wrongdoing
-
Nearly
all are copycat acts to achieve
fame and notoriety
-
All
used guns either stolen or
acquired through other illegal
means.
Location:
Fourth-floor hallway of Martin Luther King Jr.
High School located in Manhattan's Upper West
Side near Lincoln Center.
Date:
January 15 2002, about 2 p.m.
Victims:
Andrel Napper aged 17, shot in the lower back.
Andre Wilkens aged 18 shot in the shoulder. Note,
some reports list Wilkens age as 15 and the
gunshot wounds as being in the back and buttocks.
Both in stable condition with no signs of
permanent injury.
|
Shooter:
Vincent
Rodriguez, 18 was charged with two counts
of first-degree attempted murder and
first-degree assault. Police report the
shooting was due to teasing of his
girlfriend and because they 'pulled a
bandanna off her head'.
Weapon:
.380 caliber automatic handgun
This is a
Class A event
|
 |
Summary:
This appears to be a person-person conflict that
happened to occur on school grounds and is not
the same as the premeditated assassinations
characteristic of the Columbine high school
incident. Some accounts describe an ongoing
dispute starting over winter break and
culminating in the attack upon Andre Wilkins and the
secondary shooting of an overly curious bystander.
The gunman does not appear to be a student at the
school. The majority of the students seemed
surprisingly nonplused by the events partly
because fights and other violence are common at
the school and ... "A
social worker based at the high school, Gale
Greenstein, said fights were common. She said
that the shooting may not appear to have sunken
in for students, most of whom come from outside
the area, many from violent neighborhoods." NYT
Further
notes: This shooting occurred on MLK Jr's 73rd
birthday but it's unknown if that coincidence has
any significance. The weapon made it past both
the metal detectors, x-ray machines and two full
time police officers that monitor the school.
Students say this is not unusual because other
doors can be opened by insiders allowing in
unchecked individuals.
|
Just to give
a quick indication of how poor news reporters are in
getting even the simplest facts printed correctly as
well as the difficulty the public has in identifying the
true events, check this out:
- NY1
online news reports MLKHS has
2000 students while AP reports
3000. That's a pretty big
difference isn't it? The actual
number is about 2600.
- First
they said it was gang related,
then school officials retracted
that and claim it was over a girl.
The verdict remains unresolved.
-
Initial
arrest claims were inaccurate,
it
turned out to be the wrong guy
but they kept him anyway since he
had an outstanding warrant.
Verdict: subject still at large.
|
Location:
Appalachian School of Law, a private law school
with around 170 students in Grundy, Virginia.
| Date:
Afternoon of January 16, 2002
Shooter:
43-year-old Peter Odighizuma naturalized
citizen from Nigeria, now in custody (note NYT
says he's 42).
Weapon: .380-caliber
semiautomatic handgun.
|
 |
Dead:
Dean L. Anthony Sutin and Professor Thomas
Blackwell killed in their offices. After "executing"
the two faculty members Odighizuma then went
downstairs into a common area and fired upon a
crowd of students.
Injured: Three
students listed in critical to fair condition
including Rebecca Claire Brown, 38, of Roanoke,
shot in the abdomen; Martha Madeline Short, 37,
of Grundy, shot in the throat; and Stacey Bean,
22, of Berea, Kentucky, shot in the chest.
Background:
Reports claim Odighizuma had been suspended from
school earlier Wednesday and had a history of
mental instability that school officials were
aware of. He was a second year student in first
year of school for poor grades and it appears he
may have been suspended for failing academic
performance. Psychotropic
medication in this case is almost a given.
"I was supposed to
see my doctor. He was supposed to help me out.
... I don't have my medication.''
Odighizuma told the judge. He was charged with
three counts of attempted capital murder, three
counts of capital murder and six charges for use
of a firearm in a felony.
This event
may be most similar to a 1991 shooting in Iowa.
"In that case, on the
university's Iowa City campus, a distraught
graduate student from China killed five people
before fatally shooting himself in the head. A
sixth person was permanently injured. The
authorities in Iowa said the student, Gang Lu, a
doctoral candidate in physics, was upset over his
failure to receive an academic award for his
doctoral dissertation." NYT
The
intriguing element in these cases is partly the
age since they're adults and not teenagers and
also the fact they snapped over academic
rather than social failures, then blamed upon
faculty rather than other students. This is
essentially another class of campus violence that
may well increase in coming years as pressures to
achieve competitive grades for a tougher job
market escalate.
This is a
Class A event
Monash
University, October 2002 -
Class A event
My last prediction
in February that violence from high pressure
academia would increase seems to have proved
accurate after this latest incident in Australia.
Where: Monash
University, Melbourne Australia (student
enrollment: 50,000).
When: 11:20 AM October 22, 2002.
Who:
Charged with two murders and five counts of
attempted murder: 36 year old China-born Huan Yun
Xiang - fourth year commerce honours student.
Killed: Xu Hui (William) Wu and Steven Chang,
both 26 years old.
Injured: 22-year-old student Laurie Brown -
wounds to the stomach and leg. Monash lecturer
Lee Gordon-Brown, 44 - wounds to the arm and knee.
Christine Young, 22, of Glen Waverley - wound to
the face. Leigh Huynh, 23, - wounds to leg.
Daniel Urbach, 21 - wounds to shoulder and hand.
Why: "For overseas
students, failing a course can result in
deportation. For those with permanent residency
like Xiang, it can still mean personal disaster.
There are few job prospects for Asian workers
with poor English language skills, except
unskilled factory work. Yet he would still be
required to repay his accrued university fees
through HECS—the Higher Education
Contribution Scheme.
Whatever mental health and other problems Xiang
must have suffered—and which appear to have
been undiagnosed and untreated—the pressure
associated with looming failure seems to have
been what caused him to snap" Two students
killed in Australian university shooting
Xiang's language
difficulties were compounded by two related
issues, one being a vastly oversized and
impersonal university and two the government's
profit motivation in bringing in foreign students
to take their tuition money without providing
adequate language assistance. The sheer size of
the university, Monash is Australia's largest by
enrollment, makes it difficult for struggling
students to get the assistance they need amidst
the high-volume, assembly line educational
process.
It's important to
remember that whether the school is sate run or
private they're all business' that run on money.
They have a built in incentive to both keep the
students around paying tuition as long as
possible while keeping their own costs such as
number of teachers and level of student
assistance minimized.
News Views
Malaysia:
Student opens
fire in Monash University killing two,
|
Police
quoted witnesses as saying the man gave
no indication of his intentions when he
walked into the economics class on the
sixth floor of a building at Monash
University.
Then he
suddenly stood up and began firing
indiscriminately with a revolver and
automatic pistol.
Police
questioned the attacker, described as a
man of Asian background in his mid-30s,
but gave no motive for the shooting. The
two dead men were both ethnic Asians.
Yesterday's
attack occurred in a high-rise building
housing the arts and humanities faculty
at the university's Clayton campus on the
southeastern outskirts of Melbourne,
Australia's second biggest city.
Until press
time, a Malaysian Student Department (MSD)
officer from Sydney said they had been
informed that the two students killed in
the incident were of Chinese descent but
their nationalities had not been
confirmed.
|
Ireland:
Loner student
guns down classmates,
|
A talented
student, known as a loner who struggled
with the English language [he spoke
Cantonese],
gunned down two fellow students at a
Australian university today -- the day he
was due to make his final presentation.
The commerce
student, in his 30s and of Asian descent,
was almost at the end of four years work
for his honours degree. [he was
going to give a peresentation that day
but took two handguns intead]
Students
said the gunman was a loner whose lack of
English often left him frustrated and
confused.
|
Australia:
Alleged killer
was licensed to carry guns,
|
Police said
Huan Yun Xiang, a Monash University
fourth year commerce honours student, who
was yesterday charged with murdering two
people and attempting to murder five
others, held permits for firearms.
"He was
a licensed gun-holder and he did have
permits for those firearms," a
police spokeswoman said today.
|
University
of Arizona School of Nursing October 2002
-
Class A event
I definitely get the
impression that school shootings tend to occur in
clusters and I hope it's not simple media bias,
but at present I don't have the statistical
analysis to back it up one way or the other.
Suffice to say that the frequency here is getting
difficult for me to keep up with. I think there's
an amount of motivation created by media coverage
- somewhere between the formation of an
acceptable outlet for anger and simple 'copycat'
violence.
|
Where:
University of Arizona School of Nursing
located in Tucson with around 300
students.
When: 8:30
am October 29, 2002
Perpetrator: Robert Flores Jr. age 41.
"I understand
that I have committed homicide and that I
have broken the laws of our society. I
will save the taxpayers money and take
care of the problem."
|
 |
 |
Killed:
Barbara Monroe, 45; Cheryl McGaffic, 44;
and Robin Rogers, 50 all nursing
professors, as well as Robert Flores Jr.
himself.
Why:
"He lost his
cool and ended up shooting the teachers
numerous times," one student said.
"The teachers told him he could not
take his mid-terms (exams)." |
Flores worked as a
licensed practical nurse at the Veterans Affairs
hospital in Tucson but was studying to become a
registered nurse. It was commonly accepted that
Flores suffered from depression and perhaps other
problems.
Read: Communication
From The Dead, the final statement of Robert
Flores Jr.
The
final statement by Flores really is a remarkable piece to add to
the puzzle because it is lucid, rational and directly from the
mind of the school shooter himself. Feelings of being wronged
are paramount, indeed that is about the most consistent factor
in all school shootings. Revenge on one level or another
stemming from a real or more likely just perceived sense of an
injustice being perpetrated against the self, and this injustice
needs to be paid-back with interest so to speak against the
wrongdoers.
"I guess what it is
about is that it is a reckoning. A settling of
accounts." ...and arrogance of
authorities: "The University
is filled with too many people who are filled
with hubris. They feel untouchable,"
(page 22).
I think this theme
is universal enough that even the teenage school
shooters would express similar sentiment if they
didn't lack the communications skills to speak or
write them out like the adult Flores could. And
this teenage communication trouble is partly lack
of experience but also it's actually built into
the brain itself. Studies have shown teenage
minds go through changes and restructuring which
make certain emotional and rational calculations
of others actions difficult for them to discern;
read: 'Teen angst rooted
in busy brain'.
Another interesting
factor Flores mentions is his exposure to
chemical weapons while on duty in a Patriot
missile section during the Gulf War in Iraq and
Saudi Arabia, (page 5-6). What if any connection
this has to his mental state is open for debate
but Gulf
War Syndrome has been noted for
causing mental decay, among other things.
I have not found any
evidence to support (or deny) the use of
pyschotropic drugs at the time of the shooting
but since Flores knew a significant amount about
health care and pharmacology he probably would
have mentioned it. In his final statement he
makes note of the fact that he did not go
to the clinic to get help for his depression
because anything he divulged would be used
against him by the nursing school to show that he
was a health-care safety risk.
News Views
Four dead in
University of Arizona shooting
|
Police said
that Flores walked into a class at the
nursing college shortly after the
building opened, gunning down Rogers in
her office. McGaffic and Monroe were
killed in the classroom. The gunman was
reported to be calm and spoke to the
teachers.
"It
didn't register at first," student
Diana Lugo told the Arizona Daily Star in
a report on its Web site. "Then I
just heard the gunshot go off and I could
see her fall to the ground."
Lugo, 22,
told the Tucson newspaper that Flores
"did it in a kind of calm, gross,
happy way. It was kind of like a joke to
him."
She said
that he told one of the professors, known
for mentioning spirituality during her
lectures, "Here's a lesson in
spirituality. Make peace with your maker."
|
Classmates of
Arizona nursing school shooting suspect recall an
'angry' student
|
Robert
Stewart Flores Jr. struggled as a nursing
student at the University of Arizona.
Classmates said he tangled with
instructors and annoyed fellow students.
"He
came across as very aggressive and mean
and seemed to have a lot of issues with
being angry," said Lori Schenkel, a
fellow nursing student.
Flores
failed a pediatric nursing class and was
struggling in a critical care class this
term, said University Vice Provost
Elizabeth Irvin. A critical care exam was
being administered when the gunman burst
into McGaffic and Monroe's classroom.
Schenkel
said Flores bragged to pediatrics
classmates last year that he had received
a concealed weapons permit. She said he
seemed to enjoy calling attention to
himself by asking inappropriate questions
and challenging instructors. He failed
that class and had to take it again,
Schenkel said.
"Most
of the people in class didn't like him,"
Schenkel said. "He was very
obnoxious and rude."
William
Gordon, a registered nurse who said he
worked with Flores at the veterans
hospital and knew him for three years,
said he saw nothing that would foreshadow
violence by Flores.
"He was
very nice, very intelligent, very well-spoken,"
Gordon said. "I never heard anything
violent period from this guy."
University
police Chief Anthony Daykin said a
university staff member filed a report
with the police in April 2001 saying
"Flores conveyed to staff he was
depressed and may take action against the
college of medicine." Police
attempted to contact Flores but Daykin
didn't know if they had been successful.
|
Tension between
Ariz gunman, faculty
|
Flores
claimed that during the Gulf War, he came
down with serious and chronic health
problems due to chemical weapon fumes
from a captured Iraqi depot that blew
through his unit's camp.
"It was
daylight while I was resting on my cot
when I started to get a horrible headache
and abdominal cramps with nausea,"
Flores recalled. "I thought I was
going to bust my gut when I got to the
latrine."
Flores said
his unit twice experienced waves of mass
nausea and diarrhea, but it was not until
five years later that he concluded the
unpleasant health experiences were caused
by chemical agents from Iraqi
installations blown up by U.S. engineers.
|
See also:
Anthrax & Gulf
War Sickness Report
2003:
Spring is school shooting season
John McDonogh High
School
-
Class A event
Where: John McDonogh
High School Gymnasium in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"About 200 students
were in the gymnasium when four suspects entered
the building, Defillo said. Only two of them were
armed, one with an AK-47 assault rifle and a
second with a semi-automatic pistol."
UPI
When: About 10 or 10:30am
Monday April 14, 2003.
Arrested: Tyrone
Crump (17), Herbert Everett (18), and Michelle
Fulton (17), Larry Moses (19). "A
local television station, WDSU-TV, reported that
the arrested suspects were all wearing identical
white t-shirts and jeans and had dreadlocks."
NZ
Why: Gang related.
[New
Orleans Mayor] Nagin said he believed that the
attack was in retaliation for a fatal shooting
that occurred in the past two weeks. The dead
victim in today's shooting may have been involved
in the earlier shooting, Nagin said. UPI
Result: Jonathan
Williams dead at the scene.
A 15-year-old
girl wounded in both legs was in serious
condition. One 16-year-old girl was wounded in
the left thigh and a second 16-year-old girl in
the left arm and buttocks. They were both in good
condition at Charity Hospital. UPI
Further: It does not
appear that any of the attackers / suspects
attended the school.
|
The suspects
managed to slip out of the gym and they
were arrested about three blocks away.
Two were in a getaway vehicle and two
others were at a nearby house.
It was not
immediately clear how the gun got through
metal detectors and guards at the school.
Students and school security officers
said there was a hole in the fence near
the gym.
School board
member Elliot Willard said students told
him that the boy was the target and the
girls were accidental victims.
Leon Myles,
a 17-year-old junior, said he knew
Williams. "He was an OK guy,"
he said. "It was probably gang stuff."
FOX
|
Final quote:
"How
can this happen in a school?" she demanded.
"They have guards in there. They're supposed
to have security." -
Darlene Claiborn, apoplectic parent.
What is school like
the day after a shooting you ask? Here's a peek:
-
School
attendance drops 50%
-
Police and
security guards search bags and backpacks.
-
The
'violence intervention team' from LSU
shows up to identify and counsel troubled
students.
-
Meanwhile
administrators study the hole in the
fence and debate its relevancy to the
shooting and how it can be fixed.
-
Read more at
Security
tightens after high school shooting, USA Today
(from AP) 4/15/2003.
The school system
that John McDonogh High School is a part of
spends $4,000,000 on security every year. John
McDonogh alone has its own security team of four
armed security guards and a New Orleans police
officer yet the public continues to fixate upon
heightened security as the solution to school
violence.
|
"John
Mac had become a dumping ground,"
said a teacher familiar with the
committee's work. "We had identified
about 300 kids who either didn't belong
in the neighborhood, were too old, or
weren't making academic progress and were
habitual offenders of school policy."
As some of
the city's public housing developments
were being torn down, the school saw an
influx of students from different
neighborhoods, or wards, who brought
their neighborhood allegiances with them,
the teacher said. "They came to John
McDonogh and brought the ward violence
with them," the teacher said. "It
reached a point where we were having gang
fights all the time, almost always
initiated by people who were not involved
with the school. . . . Out of about 1,200
kids, we knew maybe 600 of them."
From: School
security defies easy solutions, By
Brian Thevenot, April 24, 2003.
|
Sources:
FOX = FOX News
Student Killed
in Shooting at New Orleans High School; Suspects
Arrested Monday, April 14,
2003.
NZ = New Zealand Herald (Reuters) Four shot at US
high school
UPI = One dead, three
injured in school shooting,
April 14, 2003.
Red Lion Junior High
School -
Class A event
Where: Red
Lion Junior High School cafeteria in Red
Lion, Pennsylvania.
When: around 7:30
Thursday morning on April 24, 2003.
Killed:
Principal Eugene Segro (51) from one .44-caliber
bullet to the chest and James Sheets (14) killed
with a .22 self-inflicted gunshot wound to the
head.
Why:
"We don't know why,
period. I think it's safe to say that something
was building inside of him that he couldn't
control." - Red Lion
Borough Police Chief Walt Hughes.
|
"All of
a sudden, he just stands up and shoots
the principal ... and then I saw him
shoot himself in the head," said
Angel Williams, 14, who knew Sheets and
was sitting nearby.
[2]
The guns
belonged to his stepfather, Arthur Baker,
police said. Sheets had used a key to
remove them from a safe at his house,
apparently on Thursday morning, police
said.
Sheets was
an athletic boy who played on the school
football team and could often be found
skateboarding or shooting hoops in his
rural subdivision, neighbors and fellow
students said. Police believe he acted
alone. [1]
|
Sources
1.
FOX news,
Boy, 14, Kills
Principal, Then Himself in Pennsylvania School, April 24,
2003
2. ABC news (AP story),
Pa. Police Probe
Teen Killing, Suicide, April 25,
2003
James
Sheets
does not seem to have had any disciplinary
problems at the school and his family claims it
knew nothing before it transpired which could be
true but more likely they simply weren't paying
attention.
Notice how
the mass-media reports always refer to anyone
with two or more guns as being "heavily
armed" ? Another thing I've noticed is that
increasingly these stories are almost exactly the
same word for word no matter what the domestic
American media source. I think they're all
copying off the same wire report but they alter
it just enough that they can claim original
credit and not have to cite AP or similar.
Rocori High School, Minnesota - Class A event
Where:
Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota; one shot in the
gymnasium the other in a room used for weight-lifting. School
size: 829 students.
When:
Wednesday, September 24, 2003 'late morning'
Who: 15
year old freshman Jason McLaughlin is accused of shooting Aaron
Rollins, a senior, who died at a hospital after being shot in
the face and neck and Seth Bartell, 14, freshman, in critical
condition who was shot in the chest and head.
Why:
Teasing likely, “[Jason McLaughlin]
endured endless teasing over his severe acne.”
"No one paid attention to him. He had a
lot of anger," student quoted [1].
Weapon: 22 cal. handgun
Sources
1.
'One Dead, One Wounded in Minnesota School Shooting,' Wired
News From Reuters, Wednesday, September 24, 2003.
2.
'School shooting puts focus on bullying, counselors' burdens',
By Brian Bakst AP. "We have a tendency in
education across the board to be reactive and not proactive."
- Dr. Walter Roberts Jr., "a professor of
counselor education at Minnesota State University in Mankato."
Stevincollege: A
Deadly School Shooting in The Netherlands
-
Class A event
Where:
A 'crowded cafeteria' during lunch at Stevincollege, a high
school in the southwest part of The Hague, Netherlands. One
source calls the school "Terra
College" [4].
When: ~1:15pm Tuesday January
13, 2004.
Shooter:
A 17-year-old
"of Turkish descent" [5] and
“with
a reputation for being a troublemaker, had reportedly been
punished for misbehaviour a few days earlier.” [3] The student
was
facing or already suspended depending on the news source.
Killed:
Economics teacher and
deputy
principal
Hans van Wieren (49) shot once in forehead, died in a hospital
after being airlifted. [2]
This story is
enlightening for more than one reason, for instance the
Netherlands has very strict gun laws but this student
nevertheless still shot a teacher and this particular school
received awards for its security measures, although one news
article stated they did not have metal detectors. So
Stevincollege was both monitored and guarded yet still had
frequent visits from the police, “The
school apparently has a history of violence and students said
police make frequent visits. "Fights are normal here, but not
like this," said student Mohammed Ouledle.” [1]
As
the school battled to maintain order, the deceased teacher was
recently responsible for the installation of surveillance
cameras at the school in response to previous violent incidents.
Students had also been issued with ID cards. [4]
"Conflicts
can arise, but you can't resolve them with weapons. And the fact
that a teacher should be the victim of a discontented student --
it's not right. You can't behave like this, you must not behave
like this.”
[1]
The clearly panicked Prime
Minister, Jan
Peter Balkenende. No, no, no! Stop it, you can’t do that!
The
school, with several hundred students of mostly Moroccan and
Turkish origin, was cleared and the neighbourhood closed to the
public as police investigators moved in with sniffer dogs to
search for the suspect and a weapon. ...
In
1999, a student, also of Turkish descent and 17, opened fire on
other students in the southern Dutch town of Veghel, wounding
five people. He was jailed for five years. [5]
Note that all the
mainstream debate continues to loop around weapons in schools
and the need for greater security measures.
1.
Dutch Prep Student Fatally Shoots Teacher, by Toby Sterling, AP via Newsday,
Jan. 13, 2004.
2.
Netherlands shocked by first deadly school shooting,
AFP via Yahoo! January 15, 2004.
3.
Student shoots teacher dead, January 15, 2004, AP via
Sydney Morning Herald.
4.
Shot teacher dies, 'student killer' reports to police,
Expatica News, January 14, 2004.
5.
SUSPENDED SCHOOLBOY GUNS DOWN HIS TEACHER, The
Scotsman, 13 Jan 2004.
Five-Year Review: 1999-2004
Although 2004 has been a relatively slow year for school
shootings that doesn’t mean these events have lost the power to
shock the public and hold its interest. In 2002 Michael Moore
created his well-known pseudo-documentary for the hoi polloi
called Bowling for Columbine. In it he portrays multiple
aspects of American history and culture that connect with school
violence, specifically a peculiar American culture of fear,
violence and retribution. This leads to the primary question the
film poses - why is America different when it comes to school
shootings, why is American culture prone to these events whereas
other places with the same problems are not? But is America
really the exception? Is that even the most pertinent
question to ask?
In
1999 I created the School Shootings Report you’re reading
here because I wanted to explore alternative explanations for
these recurring events besides the pat answers of banning guns
and violent video games continually bouncing around in the
mass-media mind vacuum. I wanted to systematically study the
major school shooting events to find similarities and
differences using tools like the
Event Matrix.
Psychotropic
Medications
Although certain similarities and differences did emerge, the
strongest correlation that I found was the use of
anti-depressants by these teenagers. It’s interesting to note
that anti-depressants like Prozac, Ritalin, Paxil and Luvox when
used by teenagers have now, five years later, been found to
cause suicidal behavior. [1] Certain pharmaceutical companies
have been eager to expand their profits by finding and
exploiting new demographics for their existing drug line even to
the point of suppressing studies that proved their drugs were
dangerous when given to kids. [2] Medicating teens and even
pre-teens with these psychotropic drugs is a recent phenomenon
and correlates quite well with the new form of especially
violent school shootings that have occurred over the past ten
years.
Sex & Gender Roles
One glaring element that has not been addressed is the obvious,
the startling disparity between the sexes when it comes to the
perpetrators of violent acts in schools. Males have committed
all, or nearly all, of the school shootings, just look at the
photos shown above. It could have something to do with typical
social insecurities and raging hormones of adolescence
compounded by the minimal faculties for controlling their
actions and emotions that teenagers possess to begin with and a
brain and personality that is still under formation too. Males
also tend to externalize and project problems outward while
females tend to internalize them, in other words the violence
rooted in the same issues may take on different forms.
On
a more philosophical plane it could be an awareness of the
erosion of male purpose in post-modern civilization, the
absurdity of male existence amid biological redundancy. Females
have an innate sense of purpose originating in their own
biology, they create life, but males don’t really have any
purpose, especially not anymore. [See also:
Bio-Future]
Throughout the ages men were around
to defend the tribe and kill the enemy but today in complex and
advanced civilization the concept of ‘enemy’ has no solid
meaning because the tribe and all the simple social bonds
associated with it no longer exist. The enemy could be anyone,
even you…
Values & Beliefs
But many things don’t have the purpose they once did today. Many
values that were once sacred or holy have been shown to be
completely hollow and even corrupt. Welcome to the 21st century,
an age of anomie as never before. Unfortunately there’s no way
out of anomie except through it and indeed we are in a very
evolutionary process even though such events are rarely
recognized as they happen in the eye of the storm.
As the dominant values and beliefs
decay, social hypocrisy becomes more and more evident,
especially to those of a young age who have a tenuous attachment
to the establishment and naturally inquisitive minds as well.
Teenagers are the canary in the coalmine detecting a
society ready to implode upon itself.
Guns
American boys are often familiarized with guns from a very early
age. Whether in the form of toy pistols or ‘GI Joe’ action
figures this enculturation to objects of deadly violence has
long been blamed for generating a sense that guns are
appropriate and familiar tools for carrying out violent acts.
This may help to explain the increased occurrence of school
shootings in the United States, however it is not a new
phenomena. America has had a rural-oriented gun culture for
centuries and this alone can’t explain why school shootings are
more common today than in the past.
Media
Contrary to popular belief school shootings do occur in
countries other than the United States - Scotland, Germany and
Australia for instance. However the difference is in how these
events are reported for only America has a hyper-competitive
mass media. In most parts of the world the media is tightly
regulated and usually government controlled, think of the BBC or
DW (Detsche Welle) in Germany. This means that school shootings
are reported but rarely if ever sensationalized and hyped
to the point of saturating the public consciousness as occurs in
the United States. Multiple, advertising revenue driven news
companies competing for the attention of the same public
audience, while all simultaneously drawing reports from the same
sources, creates an echo chamber that amplifies rumors and
innuendo while feeding on public fears and emotions rather than
seeking a reasoned and objective analysis of events.
Isolation
Teenagers really ar | 
