By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com
March 23, 2001
I was watching an interview on Fox news about the falling prices on the stock market when the commentator stopped literally mid-sentence and announced "I'm getting word of another school shooting in California..."
The TV screen switched to pictures of Granite Hills High Scholl in El Cajon, distraught parents and stunned students. It was a familiar scene, but what struck me was the almost automatic response of students and police interviewed talking about the "lock-down" procedure then in process.
As the story unfolded, we learned from an online San Diego Union Tribune (http://www.uniontrib.com/news/metro/20010322-9999_shooting5.htm) Report:
"El Cajon police Officer Rich Agundez Jr., who had been assigned to work at the school that day and was in the administration building, heard the shots, walked to a glass door and saw the shooter in the quad area east of the building, El Cajon police Capt. William McClurg said."Agundez and the gunman traded shots through the doorway, then Agundez went outside and pursued the gunman in what what McClurg described as "a slight running gunbattle."
"San Diego County sheriff's Deputy Angela Pearl, who was on campus for an unrelated investigation, joined in the pursuit, McClurg said."
... Because of the Santana High School shooting earlier in the month, school officials had met with El Cajon police representatives on March 14 to update their crisis plan for locking down the school.
"That (plan) did go into action today and it did work perfectly," said school Principal Georgette Torres.
Compare that news story with the following story, published 2 years ago in August 1999:
PITTSBURGH - Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge ordered a lock-down at the state's 24 prisons after three inmates, including a four-time murderer, escaped from two institutions over the past two weeks, officials said Tuesday.The lock-down confines the state's 36,000 inmates to their cells, not allowing them outside for meals, exercise or classes. The inmates are also denied visits during the lock-down, which will continue indefinitely, officials said.
Ridge has ordered the Pennsylvania Corrections Department to investigate security measures at all prisons. ``What we have to do now is find out where the system broke down, because somewhere it did break down,'' said corrections spokesman Michael Lukens.
Our public schools have become prisons with almost the same kind of mentality to "control" the children that we use in our society to "control" criminals. The Granite High students and Santana students talked about the "narcs" - which now seem to patrol the halls of our schools like guards in the state prisons. Students in California cannot even bring a plastic knife or fork to school to eat with without fierce punishment. The more oppressive the schools become, it seems the more violence we experience in the schools. My grandchildren in Wisconsin are not allowed to play in the snow, lest one of them throws a snowball at another (a favorite sport in my school days.) They cannot play on the swing set, because they have all been removed, lest some child bump into another. School plays often depict the most depraved and violent behavior imaginable.
And, perhaps most telling, when a shooting does occur, it often takes hours to find the parents of some of the children. One parent of a Granite High child, who was there almost immediately, said to the Union Tribune reporter:
"When it hits your own town, it's the scariest thing," said Marilyn Albert, whose son, Ren, 16, attends Granite Hills. "I'm just glad that my son's OK and I'm sorry for anyone that is hurt. Home schooling is starting to sound really good."
I thought of a column written by Tom Barrett, (editor@ conservativetruth.com), sent to me the other day after the Santana shooting and before the Granite Hills Shooting, which he began by observing:
"Today I received a high honor. It happened as my three-year-old daughter and I were listening to classical music in the car. Ever since we took her to see the Nutcracker she has referred to any type of classical music as "ballerina music", so the music reminded her of her upcoming dance recital. She reminded me that she was going to dance on the stage in a "pretty ballerina dress", and then surprised me by asking, "Daddy, will you dance on the stage with me?""In addition to being touched and honored, I was reminded of a tape lent to me by one of the elders of my church, Jeff Loveland. On the tape Josh McDowell was speaking at a one-year memorial service for the victims of the Columbine shooting. He gave some fascinating statistics about the relationships of children and their parents that every American should hear."
Those statistics, printed below, are interesting. However, what really stuck with me was that first paragraph in which his little three-year-old daughter asked, "Daddy, will you dance with me on stage?"
How many little girls in our society today have a daddy around often enough to even ASK such a question? And, if they did, how many daddies would hear the question and, amazingly, even REMEMBER what their three year old said? I have every confidence that Tom Barrett told his daughter, and would make good on the promise, to dance with her on stage. More importantly, his three year old had enough confidence in her father that she dared to asked him the question. She will grow up able to ask her father tougher questions as a teen-ager, too.
That brings me to 15 year old Charles Andrew "Andy" Williams, a quiet boy who shot up Santana High School. Should he be allowed, as a 15 year old "adult," to mention at the trial what happened in his family that made him ""mad at the world," and suicidal? Was it just because he was "picked on" and bullied at school that the boy seemed to feel as though he had neither a mother, who was living 3000 miles away, or a father, who seemed to have a cold relationship with the boy?
Andy Williams was so quiet that not even his own brother could imagine him shooting up the school. What was the real cause of him being so frustrated and angry, and unable to communicate, that he chose a plan that included shooting people and saving the last bullet for himself? Tom Barrett suggests the root cause is "lack of emotional attachment."
A time when there would be a "lack of emotional attachment" has been foretold in the Bible. The Apostle Paul described the "perilous times of the last days" in a letter to his young friend Timothy: (2 Timothy 3:3) as a time when "men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection..."
With that in mind, let's talk about the study of the last 17 school shootings Josh McDowell referred to in Tom Barrett's column:
"McDowell commissioned a definitive study of the last 17 school shootings. On the surface, the results were the same as dozens of other similar studies; there seems to be no "profile" of a teenage killer. They come from poor, middle class and rich homes. Some are nerds and geeks; some are the most popular kids in school. They come from a variety of races and religions. Some make good grades; some don't. Some have been bullied, others are the bullies. McDowell went below the surface, and discovered a common thread that other studies missed or ignored. He found that in every case, the families of the murderers were superficially normal, but were in fact dysfunctional when it came to the relationship of the children with their parents. In particular, the fathers were either absent or minimally involved in parenting."After making this discovery, McDowell commissioned another study that involved 2,000 children ages 12 to 17, and 1,000 parents. The study revealed that children raised in a SINGLE PARENT home were 30% MORE LIKELY than the national average to be involved in drugs, alcohol, and violence. I can almost hear some of you saying, "That's no surprise. I've always felt that divorce was the major cause of youth violence. I'm glad WE have two parents raising our children." Read on.
"Adolescents raised in TWO PARENT families in which the father had a poor to fair relationship with his children were 68% MORE LIKELY than the national average to have problems with drugs, alcohol, and violence! That floored me. Two parents in the home are no defense against the problems we're discussing, unless the father is close to his children. If he is not, his children are at more than twice the risk of children raised in single parent homes.
"The final statistic shows us the answer to school violence, as well as a host of other problems affecting our youth. Teenagers raised in two parent families in which the father had a good to excellent relationship with his children were 96% LESS LIKELY than the national average to become involved with drugs, alcohol, and violence.
"These statistics show us that many of the things that we have assumed would protect our children will not do so. You can raise your children in a two parent family in a "good" neighborhood, send them to a "good" school, and even take them to church. But if there is a lack of emotional attachment, if there is no loving bond between the children and their parents, particularly the father, children of every background are at risk. In essence, this study shows that if the boys who killed their fellow students in Colorado had enjoyed a loving relationship with their fathers, Columbine would never have happened.
Perhaps if children in our society were not treated so much like criminals in their homes and schools, they would not act so much like criminals in their homes and schools?
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
To contact Tom Barrett: editor@conservativetruth.org
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