[url]http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/05/16/school.violence.ap/index.html[/url]

CNN.com - Study: Most school shootings preventable - May 16, 2002

Study: Most school shootings preventable
Secret Service outlines methods to head off violence

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Most school shooters felt bullied or threatened by
someone else just before they went on a rampage, a study by the Secret
Service finds, with virtually all shooters having difficulties coping with
a relationship or a falling out among peers.
In a training manual to be distributed to school and law-enforcement
personnel, the agency that protects the president said schools should pay
more attention to students' social problems, listen to their complaints,
urge classmates to report problems and watch out for depressed, suicidal
teen-agers if they want to head off school shootings like the one at
Columbine High School in 1999.
The findings weren't surprising to several people who work in the schools.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO
  CNN's Kathy Slobogin reports on a video that
  shows the telltale signs that predict a student
  might turn to shooting up a school. The video
  will be shown in schools around the country.
 (May 15)

  Play video

"They're not telling us anything new," said Curt Lavarello, who heads the
National Association of School Resource Officers. He and others schools
have been following such suggestions for years.
"If anything, they're reaffirming the things we've said for many years
now. ... We keep our ears to the ground, so to speak."
The Secret Service and the Education Department plan to hold training
sessions based on the manual in six cities this summer.
As part of its mission to protect public officials, the Secret Service
operates the National Threat Assessment Center to study and help prevent
violence in public places. The center began looking into the patterns of
school shootings in 1999, after two students killed themselves and 13
others in a rampage at Columbine, located in Littleton, Colorado.
Probe: School shooters left clues
School shooting characteristics
The Secret Service studied 37 school shootings,
beginning in 1974, in 26 states. Common
characteristics of the incidents included:

All the shootings were conducted by young men or
boys.

Contrary to the impression from the Columbine High
School attack, fellow students were not the only
targets. In more than half the incidents, the
attacker had selected at least one school
administrator or faculty member as a target.

-- continued --

Handguns and rifles/shotguns were the primary
weapons used.

More than half of the attacks occurred in the
middle of the school day.

Source: National Threat Assessment Center

Investigations of school shootings since 1974 found that students who came
to school with a plan to kill did not just "snap." They warned classmates,
aired their grievances and left other clues.
Researchers found that in most school attacks, students knew something was
about to happen. In one case, rumors of a planned shooting drew two dozen
onlookers to a school hallway before the attacker opened fire; one student
had brought a video camera, but forgot to record the event.
In more than two-thirds of cases, the attackers said they felt persecuted,
bullied, threatened, attacked or even injured by others just before the
shootings. Many either threatened to commit suicide or actually tried it.
The Secret Service has warned strongly against profiling students, saying
there is no common profile of a school shooter. Some were popular, others
were not. Some made good grades; others were failing.

EXTRA INFORMATION
 View the full report  by the Secret Service's
 National Threat Assessment Center

Some were in foster care; some came from intact families that were pillars
of the community.
Rather than building a profile of an attacker with a set of personality
traits, schools should focus on behavior and motives and encourage
students to speak out about students who are threatening violence,
researchers have said.
Based on what they've seen of report drafts, several school safety
personnel said the recommendations are helpful but took too long to
emerge.
"This project's been going for three years and it's just hitting the front
lines," said Ohio safety consultant Ken Trump. "We needed to be
reinforcing what we knew on the front line the day after Columbine."
Duane Hodgin, an assistant superintendent with the Metropolitan School
District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis, said the district has had a
"threat assessment procedure" for three years, requiring psychological
evaluations of students whose threats seem serious.
"There is no one profile, but ... there are indicators that you have to
look at," he said. "You have to use common sense."
Nonetheless, Hodgin said he would attend a training session this summer.
"We want to get all the training, awareness, anything we can to keep our
students, staff, everybody as safe as possible," he said.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

© 2002 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
An AOL Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.

all the shootings were not done by boys/mem...remember that catholic school girl that shot up the lunchroom with a .22?

Oh yeah, I have forgotten. I think there were few other incidents that involved a girl/women just that I can't remember. Wasn't there one in Oregon?

This goes to show you can't believe everything your

These "studies" are propaganda and junk science.

Most school shootings can be prevented by - teachers carrying guns.


Here's my bill for $275,000. [rolleyes]

Seriously, are they only NOW figgerring out the shootings were preceeded by the students being emotionally unstable?? If they were emotionally stable at the time, [b] THEY WOULDN'T GO AROUND FRIGGEN SHOOTING PEOPLE!!!!! [/b]

You KNOW what this study means - Demoncrats are gonna push for a MASSIVE, INTRUSIVE "For the children" child sociological  monitoring program, invading teh sanctity and privacy of every home, undermining the authority of every parent.



These days, "studies" is a code word for "report with a pre-determined conclusion, justifying and mandating  ever-increasing gov't spending, until we achieve the Socialist utopia." (translation: until hell freezes over)

Yep, I agree, but here is the reason for all of this BS.

According to Neal Knox:
[url]http://www.nealknox.com/pipermail/fcalerts-list/2002/000011.html[/url]
Sat May 11,02 "In general, Democrats are trying to avoid talking about guns
-- Sen. Chuck Schumer was almost the only one raising Cain about the
DOJ position on the Second Amendment -- but Sen. John McCain (R-
Ariz.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Ct.) say they want to move their
gun show bill as an amendment to "an appropriate bill" *this*
month.

    And to provide the softening-up artillery bombardment,
American for Gun Safety is running ads in D.C. and in selected
states around the country.

    Your Senator should be hearing from you, even if you know he's
going to vote wrong.  If he's not getting phone calls (and mail and
calls to *district* offices) he'll think there's no opposition to
McCain-Lieberman."