To the editor:
The recent tragedy at Santana High School is the latest in a pattern of tragedies where alienated, disaffected, and very angry young students have taken lives. What can we do as a society to stop this pattern? We cannot ignore it as a series of aberrational events. What we can do is to understand the pattern of common facts in each of these incidents. The information gained from that understanding must be turned into an action plan.
The U.S. Secret Service recently published a report that studied 37 school shootings involving 41 attackers. There were several significant findings of that report:
-l The incidents involved attackers who planned the attack over a period of time.
- The attackers were motivated by revenge, or had some type of grievance.
-l In over three/fourths of the incidents, the attackers told someone what they were going to do.
-l There is no accurate or useful profile of the "school shooter."
Given this information, what action plan must we undertake? First and foremost, every school district must have in place a safe school plan. This plan must include a crisis reaction initiative that will prevent and minimize casualties. Since there is no useful profile of an attacker, that plan must assume the shooter could be anybody. Secondly, a massive educational effort must be undertaken to teach every citizen to take any threat of violence in a school venue seriously, and report it.
The Koch Crime Institute, like similar organizations, is researching possible solutions to prevent these horrible events, but solutions will take years of investment and hard work. In the interim, steps must be taken toward the safety of our children. After all, what does it say about us as a society if we mandate public school attendance, and place our children in a field of fire?
Finally, our worst nightmare is that school shootings became institutionalized; an accepted fact of life. Then we have truly lost.
Jerry Wells, executive director,
Koch Crime Institute,
Topeka
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