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Reducing violence in U.S. schools
Dispute Resolution Journal, Nov 1998 by Denenberg, Tia Schneider, Denenberg, Richard V, Braverman, Mark
School Districts Unprepared
Measured against the federal guidelines, the districts that suffered fatalities earlier this year were sorely wanting. In both the Oregon and Arkansas incidents, the students had articulated an intention to harm and a plan of dangerous action-which amount to an "imminent warning sign." In Arkansas, the young shooters voiced an intention to take revenge at the middle school for a perceived slight; one allegedly said that "I have a lot of killing to do." Kip Kinkel apparently had spoken to other students in Thurston High about doing "something stupid" and had been voted by his fellows as "Most Likely to Start World War III," a jest that proved to be figuratively prophetic. He idolized the Unabomber, boasted about stuffing "lit firecrackers into the mouths of squirrels and chipmunks,"" and bragged about having blown up a cow.12 The day before the shooting, he had been suspended for bringing a stolen gun to school; the shooting may have been his retaliation for the suspension.
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Clearly, these boys had been signaling to peers. The troubling expressions may never have reached adult ears because fellow students felt uncomfortable telling their elders or feared reprisal.
An alternative explanation is that teachers heard Kinkel's extreme statements but did not consider them remarkable because similar threats of mass destruction had been uttered by other children; or Kinkel's pronouncements simply did not register on the district's radar, owing to denial."
There is evidently a yawning gap between what is common knowledge on the school bus and what parents, teachers, counselors, or law enforcement authorities learn or take seriously. A cornerstone of violence prevention is the reporting of even casual threats. Students, like employees, should be encouraged-for their own safety-to report all menacing remarks or behavior, and these should be evaluated carefully by the violence prevention team and its experts.
Both the Oregon and Arkansas incidents involved students who displayed or practiced with weapons and bombs, another imminent warning sign. The discovery of a handgun in Kinkel's school locker the day before the fatal incident led to its confiscation. The school suspended the student and placed him in police custody. The police, in turn, booked and released the youth, finding no cause to detain him.
But confiscation failed to neutralize the danger, since the youth had ready access to other firearms and a stockpile of self-manufactured explosive devices at home. Although the legal grounds for detention may have been insufficient, there was still a potential for harm. The authorities neglected to undertake a prompt and thorough assessment of the risk, an essential element in violence prevention programs.
Bringing a weapon to school signified a need for protective measures. Interviewing classmates and teachers about the behavior that preceded the incident surely would have shown that some form of intervention was needed, particularly since the parents had noticed a sudden decline in academic performance. It was the boy's father-later found murdered, along with the mother, in the family home-who seemed to recognize that necessity; shortly before shots rang out in the school, he made a desperate phone call, seeking to enroll Kip in a program for troubled teens.
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