Posted by Cockney Robin | I don't mean to seem obsessed with guns or with violence, nor yet with gun violence, but perhaps I am a little. I understand that the world is a dangerous place and that in many places (Burma) the baddies still have the upper hand. But these American shootings by children are different, or ought to be. Seriously, can you good people really not see that you need to come to grips with the problem? And yes, I am willfully deaf to the arguments of Americans who tell me that there is nothing to be done, or that it is already too late to do anything, or that these incidents---the BBC has provided this helpful timeline in case you've forgotten any of them---are constitutionally inevitable. The phrase "latest school shooting" really shouldn't exist, should it?
But perhaps other people won't be as upset by this shooting as all that. Nobody is dead this time but the 14 year old---14 year old!-- shooter. Is that an outcome people can live with? Surely not. And yet... the mayor of Cleveland is closing all of tomorrow's public schools "so that students and teachers can "take a breather" and "put this in perspective"." (BBC news) Perspective? Perspective? What sort of perspective would that be? The one where schoolchildren accept that this is the sort of experience they have to put into perspective? (BBC news)
Cleveland's mayor said those injured in the shooting included two teenage boys aged 14 and 17, who were both in a "stable, good condition.
A 57-year-old man and a 42-year-old man were hurt slightly more seriously and are in "a little elevated condition", [Cleveland's] Mayor Jackson said. (BBC news)
I posted a day or so ago on the shootings in Crandon, Wisconsin, where a 20 year old with a gun killed some of his mates in a fit of jealous rage. Is this the sort of thing Americans will allow their children to get used to?
Witnesses reported having seen the shooter roam through school corridors with a gun in each hand.
Ronnell Jackson, 15, told the Associated Press that he saw the attacker running down a hallway.
"He was aiming at me, I got out just in time," he said.
Some students and staff fled after hearing shots and an alert on the school public address system. Others attempted to hide in cupboards or under desks.
One student told Philadelphia Channel 6 Action News that the student was a goth and had been wearing a trenchcoat, boots and a chain.
"When he got suspended, he said 'I got something for y'all'," she added (BBC news).
The Independent describes the shooter, Asa Coon, as "a boy wearing a Marilyn Manson concert t-shirt and black fingernail polish."(Independent) While I can agree that this might well have marked him as a child with a certain attitude toward life, the fact is that most black-nail-varnish-wearing, Marilyn-Manson-auditing kids live through their dark, depressive, prematurely cynical years without actually shooting anyone, including themselves.
The 14-year-old boy, Asa Coon, was described by classmates and neighbours as frequently volatile and angry. He was suspended for fighting at the beginning of the week and was not supposed to be in school at all.
"He's crazy. He threatened to blow up our school. He threatened to stab everybody," fellow student Doneisha LeVert told the Associated Press.
Witnesses said Coon worked his way up the five-storey building, starting with the administrative offices and moving on to the classrooms. One person was reported shot on the third floor. The gunman eventually took his life on the fourth floor, police said....
Several students said he was nicknamed Jack Black for his resemblance to the Hollywood actor. He walked with a slight limp which some other students made fun of, and favoured the "goth" look exemplified by Marilyn Manson. Some of his neighbours suggested he was bullied, and that he was thumped during the fight on Monday that led to his supension. (Independent)
The bullied child who finally snaps and gets access to a gun....it shouldn't happen. Bullying is a part of growing up, sadly, and one that requires more intervention than it gets in the US or anywhere else. Even so, the problem in this instance wasn't that the child was bullied, nor yet that he was, as one witness alleged, a violent problem child. The problem was that he had access to not one, but two, guns. Police recovered a duffel bag in one the toilet---sorry, I mean 'restroom,' not an actual toilet---filled with ammunition and three knives. (Independent
The school was an inner-city "alternative school" the pride of the Cleveland school district, located directly across the street from the local Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters."(Independent)
Parents are complaining that the school recently refused to hire a security guard. (BBC news). Another sign that American parents are capitulating to the idea that it's reasonable for them to have to insist on this?
On the up side, if there can be said to have been an up side, the authorities "appear to have responded sharply to the shootings once they broke out." (Independent) It's just very sad that schools ought to have to be prepared to go into emergency "Code Blue" mode. (Independent)
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