Shooters usually tell friends what they are planning

Tips for parents

Based on their study of school shooters, Secret Service researchers and the Department of Education offer suggestions for schools and parents.

"Because information about these attackers' intent and planning was potentially knowable before the incident, some attacks may be preventable," the Secret Service says.

"However, because the time span between the attacker's decision to mount an attack and the actual event may be short, quick responses are necessary."

  • Understand that violence is the end result of a process, which is understandable and often discernable. Students don't snap.
  • There are no accurate or useful profiles of school shooters. Focus on thinking and behavior, not traits.
  • Targeted violence stems from an interaction among attacker, situation, setting, and target. Pay attention to the role of bystanders, people who know what is going to happen.
  • Use an investigative mind-set. Rely on the facts of this specific case. Corroborate key information. Investigate communications. Talk to the circle of friends. Investigate weapon-seeking.
  • Each case is different. Each requires an individual, fact-based approach.
  • Reduce barriers to students telling what they know.
  • Because many students brought in guns from home, consider issues of safe gun storage.
  • Don't look only for threats. Many students who posed a threat did not threaten.
  • Improve handling of grievances.

"Bullying was not a factor in every case, and clearly not every child who is bullied in school will pose a risk for targeted violence in school. However, in a number of cases, attackers described experiences of being bullied in terms that approached torment.

"They told of behaviors that, if they occurred in the workplace, would meet the legal definitions of harassment. That bullying played a major role in a number of these school shootings supports ongoing efforts to combat bullying in American schools."

-- Bill Dedman

Deadly Lessons: Part II
Deadly Lessons: Part I
Further reading on school shootings:

October 16, 2000
Chicago Sun-Times
BILL DEDMAN STAFF REPORTER

WASHINGTON--Evan Ramsey is the kid who told everyone.

He killed his principal and a student when he was 16 years old, in Bethel, Alaska. And a crowd gathered in the library balcony to watch.

"I'd called three people and asked them to go up to the library," Ramsey says. "[Two boys] told [one boy's] sister what was going to happen, and I guess she called some of her friends, and eventually there was something like two dozen people up in the library."

In its study of school shooters, the Secret Service found that attackers often tell their friends, directly or obliquely, what they are planning. But rarely do those friends tell an adult.

Ramsey described his friends' reaction, in portions of his Secret Service interview shared with Congress.

Q. "If the principal," Ramsey was asked, "had called you in and said, `This is what I'm hearing,' what would you have said?" A. "I would have told him the truth."

In Chicago, the pattern was repeated last week, when a student at Simeon High School killed himself after shooting and wounding his former girlfriend. It didn't happen at school, but kids at school weren't surprised.

"I went to the school," said Paul Vallas, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, "and students told me that he had talked about it. One student said he talked about killing somebody. And he had talked about suicide. No one told an adult."

Improved communication between children and adults is the main suggestion made by the Secret Service researchers and their collaborators at the Department of Education. They caution against overreliance on physical security.

Chicago schools have walk-through metal detectors in high schools and junior highs, and hand-held ones in elementary schools, because so many young children bring to school guns they find at home (11 last year).

"As much attention as we've focused on metal detectors," Vallas said, "we've spent an equal amount of time focusing on awareness, telling our teachers to report anything they hear, encouraging our parents and students to report anything they hear."

Ramsey's description of his shooting at Bethel Regional High School in 1997 mirrors the study of school shootings, especially in the role played by bullying and bystanders.

On the morning of Feb. 1, 1997, Ramsey went to school with a shotgun in his baggy jeans. Bethel is a remote town, accessible only by plane or ship, with only about six hours of light a day during winter months.

He had been bullied by other boys. He had tried to get the school administrators to put a stop to it, but they hadn't acted.

Q. "What did the school do?" A. "For a while they would go and talk to the person and tell them to leave me alone. But after a while, they just started telling me to ignore them."

During the two weeks that he considered the attack, Ramsey was encouraged by one boy and egged on by another. When Ramsey told his friends he would take a gun to school to scare his tormentors, another told him he would have to shoot to get their attention. He made a list of three targets; friends suggested 11 others.

He hadn't planned to shoot the principal, Ramsey said, but one of his friends who hated the principal encouraged him to put the principal on "the list."

On the day of the attack, Ramsey says, "It was kind of an avalanche. You know, an avalanche starts with something small and builds up."

Q. "Why the school?" A. "That's where most of my pain and suffering was.

"I figured since the principal and the dean weren't doing anything that was making any impression, that I was gonna have to do something, or else I was gonna keep on getting picked on."

He is serving two 100-year sentences.

"I would tell you, if you think the pain you're feeling now is lots, the aftereffects will be worse. . . . I wish I hadn't done it. Nobody should have to deal with that kind of pain."

Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times