School Safety Shield: school shooting

I learned of this tragedy as my school bus fleet prepared for our annual Christmas luncheon. We held a moment of silence, and then we shared our company with each other, with a renewed sense of life and an awareness of how it could end quickly. It reaffirmed for us why we do what we do, to get our precious cargo to and from school safely.

There are numerous pitfalls that can come after a tragedy like this. The first is to be reactionary. The smoke has barely cleared, literally, and I've already see some of this;

'Put all schools into lockdown!'

'Ban all guns!'

I heard it described succinctly by Dr. Greg Sipes, a psychologist, on local radio. He described left-brained and right-brained thinking. Left-brained thinking governs logical, rational thinking, while the right-brain governs emotional thinking. The reactionary examples come from the right brain. It is a natural response to trauma such as this, and should not be scorned or dismissed out-of-hand. However, we need to keep it in perspective, and keep the left-brain engaged as well.

This is hard to do with the pictures we are seeing of horrified children and parents that are coming out of Newtown, CT.

The second pitfall, exacerbated by the first, is to react based upon early information. This information will often change as it is vetted, corrected, then disseminated. We should then study the information, and get to understand the ramifications before we make changes.

Sandy Hook Elementary School has suffered a horrible tragedy at the hands of a gunman for as yet undisclosed reasons. 20 children are dead, as are 6 staff members.

Pray for the victims, and let the information develop.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Jersey City Police Arrest Second Suspect in School Lunchtime Shooting

Jersey City, NJ
A suspect was arrested in Nov. 16 for a shooting of a 17-year old during a lunch break at Snyder High School. Police have arrested a second suspect. No reason for the shooting has been given.

Safe Havens, International

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Martinsville Police Investigate Texts about School Violence

Martinsville, IN
Martinsville West Middle School is on level-one lockdown after administrators were alerted of violent text messages involving threats of a school shooting.

Students are not in immediate danger and a police presence has been increased at the school, said Martinsville Assistant Superintendent of Business Randy Taylor.

He said administrators were alerted yesterday by parents that their children had received text messages indicating there would be a shooting at the school. The message did not indicate who would be shot or who would be doing the shooting, Taylor said.

Safe Havens, International

Friday, September 14, 2012

Fear and the Sheepdog

This has been a rough week for Sheepdogs, especially those who watch over children in schools.

First was a school shooting in Normal, IL, where a 14-year old boy fired a gun into the ceiling of a classroom, to be subdued by a heroic teacher.

Then came September 11, and a new generation of children who only know about this watershed event in the abstract.

Then comes a story out of Brownsburg, IN, in which an Iraqi propaganda group known as IRAQI-TOP hacked their website, leaving a threatening message. The FBI now has the lead on the investigation.

Then came a story out of Indianapolis, IN, about a threatening message found in Perry Meridian High School.

Then there was today, in which three college campuses were the recipients of bomb threats, including at least one claiming to be a member of al Qaeda. There was also a bomb scare in Kansas City, MO.

Add in the unrest in the Middle East over a movie made here in the US, and you have a lot of fear flying around. How does the sheepdog handle fear?

LTC Dave Grossman has studied fear, among other things, and has developed some interesting insights.

"The ultimate fear and horror in most modern lives is to be raped, tortured, beaten, or physically degraded in front of loved ones or to have the sanctity of the home invaded by aggressive and hateful intruders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association affirms this when it notes that, "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) . . . may be especially severe or longer lasting when the stressor is of human "design." PTSD resulting from natural disasters such as tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes is comparatively rare and mild, but acute cases of PTSD will consistently result from torture or rape. Ultimately, like tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes, bombs from 20,000 feet are simply not "personal" and are significantly less traumatic to both the victim and aggressor.
Death or debilitation is statistically far more likely to occur by disease or accident than by malicious action, but statistics have nothing to do with fear. Statistically speaking, cigarette smoking is an extraordinarily dangerous activity that annually inflicts slow, hideous deaths upon millions of individuals worldwide, but this fact does not dissuade millions of individuals from smoking, and around the globe few nations are motivated to pass laws to protect their citizens from this threat. But the presence of one serial rapist in a large city can change the behavior of hundreds of thousands of individuals, and there is a broad tradition of laws designed to protect citizens from rape, assault, and murder.
When snakes, heights, or darkness cause an intense fear reaction in an individual it is considered a phobia, a dysfunction, an abnormality. But it is very natural and normal to respond to an attacking, aggressive fellow human being with a phobic-scale response. This is a universal human phobia. More than anything else in life, it is intentional, overt human hostility and aggression that assaults the self-image, sense of control and ultimately, the mental and physical health of human beings." (http://www.killology.com/art_psych_arousal.htm)

The sheepdog must learn that fear, as Grossman states, is normal and natural. There is no shame in being afraid. Indeed, fear can be a great motivator, when controlled. I'll guarantee you that the teacher in Normal was afraid when the student fired the gun in his class. Yet he grabbed the gun and subdued the shooter, and no one was hurt. So bravery is not the absence of fear, but the acceptance of fear, and control of oneself in the face of fear.

Keep up-to-date on current events, especially those related to schools. Study them, learn from them, and look for them in your own school. Do away with the "It can't happen here" mentality of the sheep. Everyday the news services have stories of schools that 'had it happen there'. So operate with the mentality that it WILL happen, and work from there.

Plan for what will happen, and don't do it alone. Sheepdogs are better in packs. Work with other sheepdogs and use their knowledge and resources to help your mission. Once you have plans prepared, exercise them. Don't be afraid of failure in an exercise, because that is how you improve your plans.

Study, plan, prepare, exercise, and know that you are not alone, and that the price of failure is too high to bear.

Non in meus vigilo!

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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Student, 14, in Custody after Heroic Teacher Wrestled Away his Gun after Lining up Classmates and Shooting into the Ceiling

Normal, IL
A 14-year-old student was tackled and detained by his teacher just after the teen fired a gunshot into the ceiling of a packed Illinois high school classroom on Friday, police and witnesses said.

The boy was taken into custody and questioned by police while Normal Community High School's more than 1,800 students were evacuated to a nearby church where parents could pick them up, Normal Police Chief Rick Bleichner said.

No one was injured.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Student Who Shot Himself at Banks County High School Dies

Atlanta, GA
A Banks County High School student who shot himself in a school restroom Friday has died.
The 16-year-old student, whose name has not been released, died over the weekend, AM750 and 95.5FM News/Talk WSB reported.

No other injuries were reported in the incident, which happened around 8 a.m. Friday.

No students or staff members witnessed the incident, the GBI said, and the gun was recovered.

From the time of the shooting, the school remained on lockdown until just before 2 p.m. Friday. Investigators searched and found no evidence of danger to the students or staff.

Student Shot on 1st Day of School near Baltimore

Baltimore, MD
A high school student has been injured in a shooting on the first day of classes at a Baltimore County high school.

County police say the Perry Hall High School student was flown to a hospital after being shot Monday morning.

Police did not provide any additional details, but Lt. Robert McCullough says there is no active shooter at the school.

The school was being evacuated. Police say students are being escorted to the nearby Perry Hall Shopping Center and parents can meet them there.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Colleges See Street-Like Incidents of Black-on-Black Violence

Afro
Many African American parents fear that the same violence they worry will affect their young adult children on the streets at home will find them in their quest for higher education. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 93 percent of the 9,000 blacks murdered in 2007, were killed by other blacks. Blacks are six times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than whites and eight times more likely to be the perpetrator, the report said.

Though college campuses don’t have the same level of violence as urban streets, some of the same kinds of crimes occur there, experts said—shootings, stabbings and assaults as a result of senseless disagreements and perceived slights. Even some students who are high academic achievers resort to street behavior when faced with a conflict at college, experts said.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Police Probe Chantilly Middle School Shooting

Chantilly, VA
Two students at Rocky Run Middle School in Chantilly, Va., were injured after being shot at by a BB or pellet gun, according to Fairfax County Police.

Officials said a boy and girl were shot at just before 10 a.m. by an unknown person outside of the school, which is located on the 4400 block of Stringfellow Road in Chantilly.

One of the students was transported to a local hospital. Officials said the injuries are not considered to be serious.

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