School violence rises again
'Spike in deaths not even on the radar screen of the public'By Gwen Florio
Rocky Mountain News
Updated: 6:07 a.m. ET April 20, 2004April 20, 2004 - In Nebraska, a boy in a black overcoat is arrested in February after being found outside his high school with 20 homemade bombs, a rifle, small propane tanks and a note declaring his intentions to hurt everyone in the school except his closest friends.
In New Jersey, a recent high school graduate and two middle school students who dressed in trench coats and called themselves Warriors of Freedom were arrested after an attempted carjacking last summer. They had rifles, a shotgun, handguns, swords and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Police said they planned to attack the school, then kill people around town.
And here in Colorado, three Fort Collins ninth-graders were accused in 2001 of planning a deadly attack on some of their fellow students. Police confiscated a semiautomatic pistol, a doubled-barreled shotgun, two rifles, a handgun, ammunition and a small propane tank from one boy's home. In his locker, they found drawings of students being killed.
In all three cases, police spoke of averting another Columbine.
The word Columbine has become a layered sort of shorthand, encompassing both action - the sort of horrific school shooting that occurred five years ago today - and intent, as in "never again."
In the five years since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed a teacher and 12 of their classmates, schools and law enforcement agencies around the country have rushed to implement policies and procedures designed to work exactly as they did in Malcolm, Neb.; Oaklyn, N.J.; and Fort Collins.
But violence in schools has hardly gone away. Fatal shootings just tend to happen one victim at a time. Since Columbine, no more than two students have died in any single school shooting in the U.S.
Add up all of those isolated numbers, though, and this school year turns out to be the deadliest on record since Columbine, said Kenneth Trump, of National School Safety and Security Services.
That statistic has garnered little attention.
"The sad reality is that the spike in school deaths is not even on the radar screen of the general public, or even flying on the stealth radar of those who should be in the know," Trump said. "In the couple of years after Columbine, we took five steps forward in the field of school safety. It seems as though we're slipping, maybe 10 steps back."
According to federal statistics, 37 students were killed or committed suicide in school or at school-related events in 1999, when Columbine occurred. That number declined to less than half that every year since, until this year.
Trump's own numbers, the most recent available, show that school violence has claimed 43 lives so far this year.
Few school shootings have been widely publicized, though, since a student in Ehrfurt, Germany, fatally shot 14 teachers, two students and a police officer before killing himself in 2002. The last well-known school shooting in this country occurred in March 2001 in Santee, Calif., when a freshman killed two students and wounded 13 others.
The temptation is to say that Columbine spurred measurable, meaningful change in policies and that lives have been saved as a result, Trump said.
Larry Abrahamson, chief deputy district attorney who prosecuted the three Preston Junior High students in Fort Collins, subscribes to that point of view.
"When Columbine is in the back of your mind, you say, 'Whoa, this threat is a situation that could actually come about,' " Abrahamson said.
But many more lives have been lost, said Trump, who established his Cleveland-based consulting firm in 1989.
Trump blames school funding cuts, an emphasis on proficiency testing that distracts attention from safety programs, and a natural complacency that sets in as years pass without a shooting of the magnitude of Columbine.
There's another factor, he said.
"From April of 1999 until Sept. 10, 2001, everyone was on the school safety bandwagon," he said. "On Sept. 11, they fell off and disappeared."
Tom Mauser, whose 15-year-old son, Daniel, was killed at Columbine, also notes weariness on the topic.
"School-wise, there hasn't been a lot of progress," he said.
Mauser is the board president of Colorado Ceasefire, a group that supports gun-safety proposals. The group has had intermittent success.
He cites a powerful gun lobby and, like Trump, a certain distraction.
"I think Americans tend to worry about what's in front of them," Mauser said.
"Unfortunately, one downside - if you want to call it that - to Columbine is that people tend to compare everything to it," he said. "The good thing is that we haven't had any more Columbines. The bad thing is that we still lose an awful lot of young people every day to gunshots."
Remembering Columbine
? What: A remembrance service, with presentations by the Columbine High School choir, families, survivors, alumni and others. A candlelight vigil will follow.
? When: 6 p.m. today
? Where: Clement Park Amphitheater
I started suffering from depression when I was 9 yrs old and it lasted all the way through college...now I get it once in awhile but I did get help and I think that was the only thing that saved me from trying to commit suicide a few times.
To me it was another attack on my already damaged self esteem for someone to think I needed 'help' What I needed was for someone to stop the bullies! My 8th grade guidence counselor was good. She talked to me and the bad kids. She brought me in to talk to other kids who were being harrassed that I didn't even know. She was always there for me, I could walk into her office ANYTIME I needed her, leaving class, coming down the hall, whenever, she'd take me in and help me and write me a pass to my next class. She really helped me and I don't know what would have happened to me if she hadn't been there. Every school should have one like her.
