[Note
from Berit] I just received this interesting chronological review by my
old friend, Samuel Blumenfeld, by email. It was apparently written last
spring. I had forgotten how many students were killed by angry,
confused, depressed and violent youth -- often living out the horrors
that filled their minds through violent and occult video games.
[See
Toying with Death]
The killing of three students by a fellow student at Chardon High School in
Chardon, Ohio, on February 27, 2012, indicates that whatever problems
existed that led to or caused the massacre at Columbine on April 20, 1999
have not gone away. Indeed, only a week after Columbine, on April 28, 1999,
in Taber, Alberta,
Canada, one student was killed and one wounded at W. R. Myers High
School. The gunman, 14-year-old Todd Cameron
Smith, walked into his school and began firing at three students in a
hallway, killing one student and wounding another. Because
this shooting took place only eight days after the Columbine
High School Massacre in
Littleton, Colorado,
it was widely believed to have been a copycat
crime.
...
A month after Columbine, on May 20, 1999, at Heritage High School in
Conyers, Georgia, six students were injured by a 15-year-old shooter, Thomas
Solomon, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend.
The shots
were fired about 20 minutes before school started. The gunman, a sophomore,
was quickly taken into custody. The six injured students were taken to
hospitals, where two were treated and released and the other four recovered.
...
On November 19,
1999, in Deming, New Mexico, Victor Cordova, Jr., 12, shot and killed
13-year-old Araceli Tena in the lobby of the Deming Middle School. And on
December 6, 1999, at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, four students were wounded when
Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at the Fort
Gibson Middle School.
Thus ended 1999,
with no end to school shootings. As expected, the educators hadn’t a
clue as to why all of this mayhem was taking place. Of course, no
one believed that it had anything to do with what the kids were being taught
in their classes. They’d never heard of Dr. Benjamin Bloom.
One thing was
obvious, the killers were getting younger. Dr. Bloom had stressed the
importance of reorganizing, (i.e., de-Christianizing), the minds of these
kids as early as possible.
On February 29,
2000, at the Mount Morris Township, Michigan, near Flint, six-year-old Kayla
Rolland was shot dead at Buell Elementary School by six-year-old Dedric
Owens with a .32 caliber handgun, which he had found in his uncle’s home.
Owens shot Kayla during a change of classes in the presence of a teacher and
22 students while moving up a floor on the stairs, saying to her "I don't
like you" before pulling the trigger. The bullets entered her right arm and
traveled through her vital artery. Rolland was pronounced dead at Hurley
Medical Center while in cardiac
arrest....
Due to his age (born on May 5, 1993) and the legal claim that at that age he
would have the lack of ability to form intent,
Owens was not charged with murder. In most U.S. states, six-year-olds
are not liable for crimes they commit. In an 1893 ruling, the U.S. Supreme
Court declared that "children under the age of 7 years could not be
guilty of felony, or punished for any capital offense, for within that
age the child is conclusively presumed incapable of committing a crime."
However, back in colonial days, five and six year olds were taught: “In
Adam’s fall we sinned all.” That was the first line of the New England
Primer....
The next horror took place on March 10, 2000, in Savannah, Georgia, where
two teenagers were killed by a 19-year-old, while leaving a dance sponsored
by Beach High School. The dance was in celebration of the school’s
basketball championship. Stacy Smalls, 19, died from gunshot wounds at
Savannah hospital, and Ramone Kimble, a 16-year-old student at Savannah High
School was shot in the head and died shortly after. Darrell Ingram, 19, was
arrested for the shootings and charged with murder.
On May 26, 2000, English teacher, Barry Grunow, was shot and killed at Lake
Worth Middle School by Nathaniel Brazill, 13, with a .25 caliber
semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes. Brazill had been suspended
earlier that day for throwing water balloons in the school cafeteria. He
returned later and asked Grunow if he could enter the classroom and speak
with two students. When Grunow said no, Nathaniel pointed the gun at him and
it went off, killing the teacher with one bullet to the head....
On January 17, 2001, a student was shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton
Eastern High School in Baltimore, Maryland. On March 5, 2001, two students
were killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a
bathroom at Santana High School in Santee, California. Two days later, on
March 7, 2001, 14-year-old Elizabeth Catherine Bush wounded student Kimberly
Marchese in the cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School in Williamsport, Pa.
Cause of the shooting? Envy. A cardinal sin.
On March 22, 2001, Jason Hoffman, 18, wounded a teacher and three students
at Granite Hills High School, Granite Hills, California. A policeman shot
and wounded Hoffman. On March 30, 2001, a student at Lew Wallace High
School in Gary, Indiana, was killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old
student who had been expelled from the school. On November 12, 2001, Chris
Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center in Caro,
Michigan, before killing himself.
What is causing so many young Americans in so many different places to
kill so many of their fellow students or their teachers? No one in
authority seems to know why. The next noteworthy shooting took place on
April 24, 2003, when James Sheets, 14, killed Principal Eugene Segro of Red
Lion Junior High School, Red Lion, Pa., before killing himself. And on
September 24, 2003, at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota, two
students were killed by John Jason McLaughlin, 15. The killer was diagnosed
as schizophrenic....
On March 21, 2005, the Red Lake reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, was the
scene of a gruesome murder which then turned into a school massacre. It
began at noon when 16-year-old Jeffrey Weise killed his police sergeant
grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend, then later drove his
grandfather’s police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School where, at 2:45
p.m. he began shooting, killed seven people on the school campus, including
five students, one teacher and an unarmed security guard, and wounded five
others. The shooting ended when Weise committed suicide.
Witnesses say Weise smiled as he was shooting at people. One witness
said that he asked a student if he believed in God,
a link obviously connected to the events that took place during the Columbine
High School massacre.
Then, on November 8, 2005, in Jacksboro, Tennessee, a 15-year-old shot and
killed an assistant principal at Campbell County High School, and seriously
wounded two other administrators. On August 24, 2006, Christopher Williams,
27, looking for his ex-girlfriend at Essex Elementary School, in Essex,
Vermont, shot two teachers and wounded another. Before going to the school,
he had killed his ex-girlfriend’s mother.
On September 27, 2006, an adult male held six students hostage at Platte
Canyon High School, Bailey, Colorado, then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16,
and himself. Two days later, on September 29, in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, a
15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal, John Klang.
On October 3, 2006, a truly bizarre massacre took place in Nickel Mines,
Pa., when a 32-year-old milk-truck drive, Carl Charles Roberts, entered the
one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in
age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts
died. Roberts, who was not Amish, left his wife and children suicide notes.
A movie has already been made of this chilling tragedy.
On January 3, 2007, Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang
Kok, 17, in the hallway of Henry Foss High School in Tacoma, Washington. On
April 16, 2007, in Blacksburg, Virginia, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech
Student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more two hours
later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33,
making that shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen
others were wounded.
On September 21, 2007, at Delaware State University, Dover, freshman Loyer
D. Brandon shot and wounded two other freshmen students on the university
campus. He was charged with attempted murder and assault. On October 10,
2007, 14-year-old Asa H. Coon, shot and injured two students and two
teachers before killing himself at Cleveland High School, Cleveland, Ohio.
The victims survived the shooting.
The United States is not the only country afflicted with school shootings.
On November 7, 2007, an 18-year-old student in Tuusula, Finland, shot and
killed five boys, two girls, and the female principal at Jokela High
School. At least 10 others were injured. The gunman shot himself and died
of his wounds in the hospital.
On February 8, 2008, a nursing student at Louisiana Technical College, in
Baton Rouge, shot and killed two women and then herself in a classroom.
Three days later, in Memphis, Tennessee, a 17-year-old student at Mitchell
High School shot and wounded a classmate in gym class. A day later, on
February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, a 14-year-old boy shot a student
at E. O. Green Junior High School causing the 15-year-old victim to become
brain dead. Two days later, on February 14, a gunman killed five students,
wounded 17 others, and then killed himself when he opened fire on a
classroom at Northern Illinois University. The gunman, Stephen P.
Kazmierczak, was identified as a former graduate student at the university
in 2007.
On September 23, 2008, there was another massacre at a school in Finland. A
20-year-old male student shot and killed nine students and himself at a
vocational college in Kauhajok, Finland, located two hundred miles north of
Helsinki, the capital.
On November 12, 2008, a 15-year-old female student was shot and killed by a
classmate at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
On February 5, 2010, at the Discovery Middle School in Madison, Alabama, a
ninth grader was shot by another student during a class change. The boy
pulled out a gun and shot Todd Brown in the head while walking in the
hallway. Brown later died at the hospital. A week later, February 12, at
the University of Alabama in Huntsville, during a meeting on campus, Amy
Bishop, a biology professor, shot her colleagues, killing thee and wounding
three others. A year earlier, she had been denied tenure.
On January 5, 2011, in Omaha, Nebraska, two people were killed and two more
injured in a shooting at Millard South High School. Shortly after being
suspended from school, the shooter returned and shot the assistant
principal, principal, and the school nurse. The shooter then left campus and
took his own life. On that same day, in Houston, Texas, two gunmen opened
fire during a Worthing High School powder-puff football game. One former
student died, five others were wounded.
On May 10, 2011, at San Jose, California, three people were killed in a
parking garage at San Jose State University. Two former students were found
dead on the fifth floor of the garage. A third, the suspected shooter, died
later at the hospital. On December 8, 2011, at Blacksburg, Virginia, a
Virginia Tech police officer was shot and killed by a 22-year-old student
from Radford University. The shooting took place in a parking lot on
Virginia Tech’s campus.
On February 10, 2012, in
Walpole, New Hampshire, a 14-year-old student shot himself in front of
seventy fellow students. Seven days later, at Chardon High School, Chardon,
Ohio, a former classmate opened fire, killing three students.
The shooter entered
the school cafeteria at 7:45
a.m., shot into a group of students, killing one and wounding four. Several
days later two of the wounded also died, bringing the total dead to three.
The shooter, identified as 17-year-old T. J. Lane, was described by
classmates as an outcast who had been bullied. He also came from a divorced
family with a history of domestic violence.
In late December he posted a poem on his Facebook page that read: "He
longed for only one thing, the world to bow at his feet," and ended
ominously: "Die, all of you." Apparently he had learned to hate life
and love death.
Finally, on March 6, 2012, in Jacksonville, Florida, Shane Schumerth, a
28-year-old teacher at Episcopal High School, returned to the campus after
being fired and shot and killed the headmistress, Dale Regan, with an
assault rifle.
What can we conclude from this gruesome record of school horrors? One thing
I know. When I was going to public school in the days when belief in God
was still permissible and school principals could quote the Bible at
assemblies, there were no school massacres. Take God out of the
schools, and you get mayhem.
"...be strong in the
Lord and in the power of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you
may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not
wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against
spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore take up
the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day...."
Ephesians 6:10-13
[See
The Armor of God]
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