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Home > Blogs > Springfield Schools News and Issues > Archives > 2008 > August > 06 > Entry
Columbine: A Survivor’s Story
Children are safest when they are at school.
A few of you are probably thinking right now “My child is safest with me.”
But it’s true — statistically speaking, kids really are safest at school. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Education, 14 school age children were murdered at school in the 2005-06 school year (the most recent data available).
In 2004-05, the most recent year available, more than 1,500 school age children were the victims of homicide. Less than one percent of those children were killed at school.
When tragedy strikes, communities, particularly parents, want to assure themselves that the schools their children attend are prepared. And since school shootings like the infamous 1999 one at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. schools are more prepared.
That’s one of the good things that has come out of the deaths of 12 Columbine students, one teacher and the two teenage gunmen on April 20, 1999, a Columbine survivor told Clark County residents yesterday.
Marjorie Lindholm, who co-authored the book “Columbine: A Survivor’s Story” with her mom, Peggy, was a sophomore at Columine that year.
She and Peggy spoke at a school violence seminar at Wittenberg Tuesday. The seminar was very interesting and sad. In addition to the Lindholms’ story, Marjorie also showed a couple interviews with other survivors that she taped to play at these events.
A few survivors have committed suicide after the shootings. Some developed drinking and substance abuse issues. Some, like Marjorie, dropped out of school because they couldn’t handle sitting in a classroom.
The video interviews showed some different reactions to the tragedy. One of the students seemed angry. Another seemed very accepting. I imagine the surviving parents, students and staff have reached various stages in their grief.
The school violence seminar was about preventing school shootings and healing after them. Law enforcement personnel talked about the phases of “active shooters” and red flags. The Lindholms talked about the aftermath.
There have been 49 “notable” school shootings in the U.S. since 1966, according to a wikipedia entry. Nine were before 1990 and 30 occurred in the last decade.
School shootings are rare and that’s why they make headlines all over the country when they happen. They are rare so there isn’t a lot of information to study. And a lot of the shooters die during it, leaving law enforcement with little other than journals, drawings and internet activity to piece together the pieces.
We know a few things. Most school shooters (all but one from what I can see) are young males. Most have been in rural or suburban school systems with few in urban areas. The shooters typically plan the attacks in detail. During the presentation yesterday, for example, someone said that one of the Columbine shooters had counted the number of students in the lunchroom at particular times day after day. The two teens times their attack based on those figures.
But the Secret Service cautions against “profiling” or identifying particular behaviors that school shooters will exhibit. Some common beliefs are misconceptions, like that the shooters are “loaners.” Most of them are not, actually, and they tend to tell someone about their plans before the attack.
The seminar lasted several hours and was packed with information. I wrote about some of the information that stuck out in my mind, but if anyone who didn’t get to go wants to ask questions, I’ll answer them on here. Just leave a comment or email me.
Did anyone attend yesterday’s seminar? What were the most interesting parts to you?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: School violence and safety
Comments
By Hillary McNabb
August 8, 2008 3:22 PM | Link to this
Testing.