SYNOPSIS

This is a research report about school shootings and it covers a time period from around 1997 to the present, focusing on shooting incidents, particularly deadly ones, carried out on school grounds both in the United States and around the world. Of course, school violence is a continually occurring problem in various degrees throughout the world but shootings are consistently reported on precisely because they are unusual and extreme events. Violence, particularly gun violence, is almost always picked up by the mass media and reported upon and thus school shooting incidents serve as a useful indicator for research purposes of the more dangerous forms of campus violence. These extreme incidents raise many questions about society, culture and the individual immersed within it all. What cultural factors do these incidents have in common? What common characteristics in personal backgrounds do the school shooters share? What motivates them to act out, physically injuring and even killing people around them?

The intent behind this research report is to discover the consistent elements within these seemingly disparate incidents of school violence by comparing and contrasting the people, places and events within them. In that regard the accuracy of the reporting for school shootings, as it is for most any other contentious and emotionally charged event, is both unreliable and inconsistent. However, through the construction of a composite consisting of multiple news sources it is possible to get the key facts pinned down to a reasonable degree of accuracy. I have not been able to capture every single incident that fits the main criteria but I have made an effort to collect as many as possible within the limits of the reporting that reaches the world through the Internet and before the event is collectively forgotten, because with the exception of Columbine incident, most all of these school shootings drop out of the range of public awareness as soon as the reporting stops. So, reaching rational and objective conclusions concerning the causes and solutions to school shootings is especially difficult without a substantive chronology of the key people and events related to school shootings, hence this report you are reading now.

INTRODUCTION

School shootings are not a simple issue with a single solution. This violence is rooted in psychological imbalances within the students themselves, poor parenting and a decay in significance of traditional institutions along with the guilt forces they rely on for effectiveness - to name a just a few. Every psychologist, every news anchor or opinion columnists, and every politician has an idea of what must be done. Yet few of these ideas have any element of common sense and even fewer offer any strategic solutions. In a nation nearly devoid of critical thought ‘viable’ solutions manifest as banning trench coats, backpacks, black clothing and expelling students for nail clipper ‘weapons’ (Pensacola, Florida June 1999) or jailing 7^th graders that write Halloween essays with violent overtones (Ponder, Texas October 1999). In this reactionary environment panic, paranoia and irrational thought pour down like monsoon season.

Much of these reactionary plans are quickly implemented because legal issues within public schools have always been fraught with uncertainty, indecision and a liberal dose of authoritarianism. Locker searches, clothing codes, and exorcising everything questionable or objectionable pretty much defines the legal standards and acceptable limits on school powers of authority and supported by Supreme Court decisions. But what may seem surprising is that despite the already authoritarian atmosphere in public schools, the cameras and the security guards, shootings and violent actions continue.

THE PARENTS

Actually the statistics show that these events are becoming less frequent but more high profile. Gangs beating up other kids for trendy shoes or lunch money just doesn’t carry the same headline grabbing material as a multiple shooting massacre. But whatever the statistics say public schools are very violent places, much in the same way that prisons are violent and dangerous places despite the omnipresence of authority. Intimidation, extortion, sexual harassment, assaults, drugs, and guns are just the tip of the iceberg for unapproved extracurricular activities that happen on campus every day across the country. This is not unusual, even the teachers get implicated in it. Parents must be totally oblivious of this because every time this hits the news they act like it was totally unknown to them before! Are they just covering their glaring inadequacies with ignorance or are they really that tuned-out? These must be the same parents that are unaware of their cute kid building pipe bombs in the garage or using the backyard as a firing range.

Part of the problem arises from the fallacy that since kids do these things, it must be inherently less harmful, less serious, ‘it’s just play’. But now that deadly force is involved, whoa it’s a different story. I guess assault and robbery is ok every now and then but a shooting isn’t, or perhaps it’s just because the news media has picked up on it in a thinly veiled effort to extenuate a gun control agenda? The last one seems the most likely because gang violence using guns, knives and clubs is so common in urban areas that it doesn’t even illicit news coverage, but it is certainly no less deadly.

Besides prescription drugs no preventative effort is being made to help students with psychological and emotional needs before they blow up into crisis and the teens see no alternative but violence to solve their accumulating internal and external problems. Unless you include metal detectors and ID cards as preventative solution, and if that’s the case you obviously haven’t learned anything on the issue yet. The United States has no public social services available to middle class families and only limited support for the poor. Parents rely increasingly on the public schools as educator, doctor and caregiver. Paradoxically school funding and training are woefully inadequate to deal with these additional roles, hell they have enough problems just trying to teach! Declining funds per student has also forced many schools to integrate ‘challenged’ kids i.e. the mentally retarded and even the autistic in with regular classes compounding the tasks of a traditional teacher but saving dollars for the school district. The school nurse is not a psychologist; likewise few parents can afford to have their child psychologically evaluated, even if they have the foresight to identify problems early on. Consequently, to say that Ritalin and other psychotropic medications are over-prescribed would be a serious understatement.

1997-1999

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 ?!

• Class A event
• Single shooter

• Used Ritalin

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.

• Class A event
• Single shooter
• Occurred near graduation

• Drugged, had pot on him, evidence points to chronic use of illegal drugs.

• Doesn’t seem to have been planned
• Social fringe

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.

Class A event Two shooters Affluent Psychotropic drugs Planned action Secured & monitored school Occurred near graduation Social fringe
	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.

• Class A event

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.

PSYCHOTROPICA

Parents are a big problem in this issue; some don’t care what their kids do and the rest are just oblivious. Parents are all too often just self-centered babies that never grew up themselves. They don’t want to discipline the brats or even appear as the ‘bad-guy’ by saying NO or denying them toys or food or not doing homework for them. Maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising that these 1960’s losers turn to drugs as the panacea for every childhood problem. The kids depressed, they’re too excited, they’re not paying attention, they’re not following teachers instructions, they don’t look right or act right, easy just dope ‘em up! And then we’re supposed to act surprised when they start shooting up the schools. Every school shooting has had one or more suspects mentally imbalanced due to psychotropic medications at the time of the shooting. The Jonesboro kids were on Ritalin, Kip Kinkel was fried too, and Eric Harris had Luvox (a powerful drug often prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder) in his brain, according to the autopsy. Harris, after lying on his Marine Corps application (wanted to fight in Kosovo) was rejected April 15 when the Marine recruiter interviewed his family and found out about the prescription drug’s. This was a significant blow to his self-image and probably did more than anything else to push him over the edge and into a shooting rampage shortly thereafter.

Between 1990 and 1995, use of methylphenidate more than doubled, according to a 1996 study at Johns Hopkins University. By mid-1995, it found, nearly 3 percent of American children and youths, or about 2.5 million, were taking it. And that number appears to have kept rising, so that by now, it may have hit 3.75 million, according to a rough estimate by Dr. Lawrence Diller, author of "Running on Ritalin" (Bantam, 1998).

"I think they give out more psychotropic medication than a psych hospital did when I did psych," she said. "Not just Ritalin but heavy-duty psychiatric medications." From NYT Jan. 28, 1999

"We do know, for example, that the 13-year-old in Jonesboro was being treated. Apparently they were saying he had been sexually abused as a child. They were saying he was now a sexual abuser. He had a hyperactivity type label put on him as well -- or 'attention deficit disorder.' So we had several different things working with him. There is no chance under the sun, moon, or stars that this kid was not on drugs," described Clarke.

Many of these kids have been on prescription medications from the day they first enter school and even earlier, literally their entire lives. Not only that but the schools and doctors alter and increases the drugs as they get older and more tolerant switching from Ritalin to Prozac to Luvox etc. Incidentally Prozac is not approved by the FDA for pediatric use but evidently that hasn't stopped any prescriptions. The use of these drugs is a relatively recent event, especially on the widespread almost universal scale that has been reached. The increase in suburban and rural school violence is directly related to the increase in psychotropic drug prescriptions to students in the public schools over the past 10 years. And tragically as long as the news media and many analysts focus on the side effects and accessories like guns or ‘Goth clothing’ nothing will be done about it. The use of these dangerous chemicals will increase as will school shootings. No one really knows what long term effects these drugs will have on brain chemistry and future adult behaviour. The kids going through school now are the first generation fried on State administered mind altering chemicals and as they reach adolescence and the emotional and physical difficulties associated with it, unanticipated and unpleasant reactions are inevitable. Many things have been used as safe and effective but after several years they find out the long term costs of such chemicals; dioxins, DDT, asbestos the list is endless. And if that wasn’t bad enough the behavioral symptoms these drugs are supposed to cure are so vague that nearly any kid can qualify, it’s largely up to parental approval. Lazy parents have a troublesome kid (and what kid isn’t at times?), the school recommends this wonder drug, the parents say ‘why not’ and little Johnny gets his fix from the school nurse every day until he graduates. Any chemical that alters behavior will have have after-effects that will magnify mental imbalances - even after the prescription is discontinued. These reactions are difficult to predict but the fluctuations from extreme emotional peaks to troughs can be magnified by sudden and significant personal events like the Marine's rejection of Harris. These extreme points are when violent outbreaks are most likely to occur.

Too many people who should no better fall into the trap of believing ‘oh its the media, violent culture, TV and video games and guns that drive these perfectly sane, normal happy kids to do bad things’. That’s total bullshit, uh I mean specious reasoning because many more children play ultra-violent video games or watch R rated movies and even use guns but they don’t shoot up schools or kill their parents. These factors certainly may contribute to violence but they are not sole causes. A genuine cause is the fact they are so fried and parentally unguided from day one that they don’t know what the hell they’re doing and its not even they’re fault because the people who should be looking out for them are lazy and want a quick easy out so they just dope 'em up and then wonder what went wrong later..