School Shootings on the Rise

Just last week, there were three nationally-reported school shootings that were unrelated and appear to be random. In a Bailey, Colorado high school, a gunman named Duane Morrison held 6 girls hostage. As the SWAT team approached to interrupt a possible sexual assault situation, the gunmen killed one hostage, Emily Keyes, and himself. In Cazenovia, Wisconsin, a 9th-grader fatally shot his school principal, John Klang, apparently for receiving a disciplinary warning related to tobacco possession. And just today a truck driver held several students hostage in an Amish school. Charles Roberts bound and gagged several female students. Before taking his own life, 7 students were wounded by Roberts and three female students were fatally shot, execution style. 

Several other possible school attacks have been thwarted in the last month as well. On September 15th, two 17 year-old boys in Green Bay, Wisconsin had planned to bomb and attack East High school before authorities acted on a fellow student’s tip. When police raided their homes they found suicide notes, sawed-off shotguns, hand guns, bombs, bomb-making material, and gas masks. This past February, three high-school students in Kansas were arrested before planning to attack Royal Valley High School in Hoyt. A weapons and bombs cache was also discovered in their homes, along with school floor plans and white supremacy paraphernalia.

These situations can make parents wonder: will their children be next? If so, what can parents or a community do about it? Can you stop random attacks from strangers outside the school, such as the Colorado and Pennsylvania incidents? And how do you know when a child will snap, such as the Wisconsin and Kansas incidents?

A Stranger in the School