Not Another Teen Massacre!
Spanaway, Washington JROTC students allegedly plot school assault
Should we blame movies? The speedway? How about the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps?
Two students with revenge on their minds, and a cohort aiming to make a political statement are accused of plotting a major, "Columbine-style" assault against Spanaway Lake High School, to be executed sometime over the next two years.
No weapons have been recovered, and none appear to have been obtained, but police acting on a parental tip have found hand-drawn floorplans, notebooks, and other documents of an alleged plan to take the school.
Investigators have discounted a larger list of possible suspect names:
Comment:
The kids could possibly have claimed they were working on a novel or movie script, but apparently didn't want to duck the issue. So what I'm left wondering is whether or not you can arrest someone for something like this. The War on Terror most likely provides the tools, but the idea of prosecuting this issue disturbs me.
I'm of the opinion that it's time to crack down on the schools. If you don't want people ragingly furious at bullies who get away with breaking school and societal rules in order to visit grief on another, then you need to stop the bullies. I know, that's out of line. It targets the "good kids" instead of the "bad kids", but therein lies a problem with definitions.
Occasionally I raise a story about zero-tolerance of guns at schools in Oregon; a 6 year-old in Eugene was expelled for bringing a GI Joe doll to school that clutched a 2-inch, solid-plastic toy rifle. Many were outraged at the severity of the zero-tolerance policy, and felt the Hispanic boy was being treated unfairly. The chorus of "bullshit" proved to be its own pure-grade pucky when a white high school student with good grades pulled a full-sized theatrical gun on a teacher and yelled for everybody to get down. When the zero-tolerance policy was applied, there was a huge uproar: the rule, claimed exasperated white parents, "wasn't meant for our kids". Well, what does that mean? Was the rule not written for "white" kids? Was the rule not written for good students? What is the definition of a "good" or "bad" kid?
Apparently, a "good" kid is a white teenager who pulls a fake gun on his teacher while a "bad" kid is an Hispanic first-grader with a GI Joe toy.
So yes, it's time to crack down on the "good" kids. The truly good kids have little to worry about. But even I'm ready to withdraw some of my battle lines.
Send the rapists to prison, send the bullies to prison, let them see what rape and bullying are really like. Perhaps their opinions will change.
Stand up to the rich families with lawyers; make them answer publicly, when they want mercy or lenience for their child, if they're really advocating that criminal behavior be overlooked, or whether it's just this criminal behavior.
I went to a private high school where some of our most prominent and popular students were simply downright criminal in their behavior. Rapes, thefts, assaults, and the rules were always meant for someone else.
In my day, we did dream of blowing things up. A friend even learned how to make diesel-fertilizer explosives. But nobody ever actually went and did it.
And them kids? Hell, the kids are alright. As Spanaway Lake students explained:
See? They're good kids. They know what's important.
____________________
Notes:
Spanaway, Washington JROTC students allegedly plot school assault
Should we blame movies? The speedway? How about the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps?
Two students with revenge on their minds, and a cohort aiming to make a political statement are accused of plotting a major, "Columbine-style" assault against Spanaway Lake High School, to be executed sometime over the next two years.
No weapons have been recovered, and none appear to have been obtained, but police acting on a parental tip have found hand-drawn floorplans, notebooks, and other documents of an alleged plan to take the school.
Investigators have discounted a larger list of possible suspect names:
Comment:
The kids could possibly have claimed they were working on a novel or movie script, but apparently didn't want to duck the issue. So what I'm left wondering is whether or not you can arrest someone for something like this. The War on Terror most likely provides the tools, but the idea of prosecuting this issue disturbs me.
I'm of the opinion that it's time to crack down on the schools. If you don't want people ragingly furious at bullies who get away with breaking school and societal rules in order to visit grief on another, then you need to stop the bullies. I know, that's out of line. It targets the "good kids" instead of the "bad kids", but therein lies a problem with definitions.
Occasionally I raise a story about zero-tolerance of guns at schools in Oregon; a 6 year-old in Eugene was expelled for bringing a GI Joe doll to school that clutched a 2-inch, solid-plastic toy rifle. Many were outraged at the severity of the zero-tolerance policy, and felt the Hispanic boy was being treated unfairly. The chorus of "bullshit" proved to be its own pure-grade pucky when a white high school student with good grades pulled a full-sized theatrical gun on a teacher and yelled for everybody to get down. When the zero-tolerance policy was applied, there was a huge uproar: the rule, claimed exasperated white parents, "wasn't meant for our kids". Well, what does that mean? Was the rule not written for "white" kids? Was the rule not written for good students? What is the definition of a "good" or "bad" kid?
Apparently, a "good" kid is a white teenager who pulls a fake gun on his teacher while a "bad" kid is an Hispanic first-grader with a GI Joe toy.
So yes, it's time to crack down on the "good" kids. The truly good kids have little to worry about. But even I'm ready to withdraw some of my battle lines.
Send the rapists to prison, send the bullies to prison, let them see what rape and bullying are really like. Perhaps their opinions will change.
Stand up to the rich families with lawyers; make them answer publicly, when they want mercy or lenience for their child, if they're really advocating that criminal behavior be overlooked, or whether it's just this criminal behavior.
I went to a private high school where some of our most prominent and popular students were simply downright criminal in their behavior. Rapes, thefts, assaults, and the rules were always meant for someone else.
In my day, we did dream of blowing things up. A friend even learned how to make diesel-fertilizer explosives. But nobody ever actually went and did it.
And them kids? Hell, the kids are alright. As Spanaway Lake students explained:
See? They're good kids. They know what's important.
____________________
Notes:
Claridge, Christine. "Three teens held in alleged plot at school". Seattle Times, December 1, 2004. See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002105247_teensplot01m.html