M ay 5,1999
Editorial Articles Do Not Necessarily
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quickly surrounded the school and
were preparing to close in on them,
P r e s id e n t N a t io n a l V rban L eague
the two killed themselves.
n ce ag ain , a m aelstro m o f
And yet, we can say that Littleton
h ate, v io le n ce an d d eath ,
was
lucky-given the diabolical scope
ca rrie d out by yo u n g bo y s
o
f
the
in com m unities seem ingly sheltered killers’ intent: to try to kill 500
students by blowing up the school,
from turbulence, has overw helm ed
wreak havoc on the larger community,
an American high school and its com
and even commandeer a jet aircraft at
m unity and the nation.
the nearby Denver airport, force it into
O nce again, w e have watched, in
the air and crash it in New York.
horror and amazement, the pictures o f
And finally, once again, in the first
bloodshed, panic, destruction, bew il
hours
and even days after the attack,
derment, and unbearable sadness.
we
heard
from students and teachers,
O nce again, as w e learn about the
from
parents,
and even from news
victim s, w e realize the great poten
commentators
that revealing phrase:
tial lost forever to our society.
it
isn’t
supposed
to happen here.
O nce again, we try to fathom the
But
we
m
ust
face
facts, and draw
source o f the killers’ evil rage.
an im portant conclusion.
W e’ve now gone through the same
These rampages have been occur
shocking routine six tim es in the last
ring in the same kind o f places, with
18 months: Before Littleton, it hap
the same kind o f perpetrators and the
pened in Pearl, M iss., W est Paducah,
same results: young white males, most
K y., Jonesboro, Ark., Edinboro, Pa.,
from materially comfortable circum
and Springfield, Ore. The body count:
stances, are striking out to deliber
14 dead, m ore than 40 w ounded.
ately com mit mass murder.
This tim e the violence left its
A nd, before and after Littleton,
bloody imprint on Colum bine H igh
th
ere’ve
been other sim ilar plots un
School in Littleton, Colorado.
covered—
such as the one broken up
The shooters were equal opportu
four days after L ittleton in W im berly,
nity haters; they murdered whites and
Texas. There, four 14-year-oldboys
blacks, athletes and non-athletes, those
w ere charged with planning to blow
who professed their belief in God and
up their junior high school. A uthori
those they didn’t give time to say any
ties said the boys had begun their
thing. The two killers’ hate was chilling
plotting in January and had a list o f 9
and apparently bottomless. The toll was
students, teachers and adm inistra
13 innocents dead, 23 wounded.
tors they specifically intended to kill.
Then, discovering that police had
H ugh B. P rice ___________________
O
© b s e r r ie r
Charles W ashington
P ublisher
It Is Supposed To Happen There
Tony W ashington
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Letter To The Editor
D ear Friends,
M y nam e is K evin M iles and I am
currently a sophom ore at grant High
School in northeast Portland.
I have been w restling since the
age o f seven with the Peninsula W res-
tling Club, under the coaching direc
tion o f Mr. R oy Pittm an. I have
learned many things through my w res
tling involvem ent - how to lose with
grace and dignity, how to accept suc
cess, and m ost im portantly - to do
my best regardless o f the outcom e.
I have been fortunate to have had
many successes along the way. I have
been the Oregon kids cham pion for
m y age and w eight in collegiate,
freestyle and Greco several times over.
I have represented O regon in seven
Western regional tournaments, always
placing in the top three and I was the
champion for our 12 state region in
both styles in 1997, placing second in
both last year. As a freshman and
again this year as a sophom ore, I won
my weight group in the Portland Inter
scholastic League and was voted the
P IL ’s outstanding wrestler.
This year I have the honor o f
representing Oregon in both freestyle
and G reco at the national w restling
tournam ent in Fargo, North Dakota.
Com petition will be held in late July.
I am training hard so that I will be
ready and able to do my best repre
senting m y state.
The entire cost o f this trip, as well
as an intensive training camp, will be
close to $ 1,000.1 am asking for your
help by sponsoring m e with a dona
tion tow ards this amount. Oregon
Cadet N ational Team is arecogm zed
tax-exempt organization- tax ID #93-
1150366 and any funds you donate
are tax deductible.
You can m ake a check out to me-
K evin M iles- and note in the memo
portion the tax ID number. Or if you
w ould rather make it out directly to
the O regon Cadet N ational Team,
and note m y name on the check, that
w ould be fine too.
Any am ount would be greatly
appreciated! Thank you foryour sup
port and I prom ise to represent O r
egon well! I hope to hear from you
soon. If you have any questions,
please call! M y num ber is 282-5351.
Thank you again!
K evin M iles
O regon C adet N ational T eam
J o in Us On The N et a t
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School
B y C arol D avis
________________
A lmost five years ago to the day
Z V t h a t C olorado students w ere
killed by classm ates ’ gunfire, N ash
ville reeled from the shooting death
o f a sev en th -g rad er by his friend
and classm ate.
Terrance Murray, who would have
graduated from high school this
spring, has instead left a legacy o f
sweeping, safety-conscious changes
in the city’s school system.
In the Nashville tragedy, the shoot
ing was not intentional. A classmate
took the .25-calibersemi-automatic from
under his mother's mattress and, during
a class when the lights were low as
students watched the movie, “Beauty
and the Beast,” he handed the gun to a
friend, who thought it was unloaded,
rhe weapon fired, hitting I errance who
was sitting a row in front o f the shooter.
He was dead on arrival at the hospital.
“ The stu d e n t’s ap p aren t m otive
w as to raise his status in the eyes o f
his peers. W hat b etter w ay to be a
big m an than to pack a w eap o n ?”
s a id W a r re n T h o m p s o n , a
V anderbilt U niversity psychology
professor, clinical psy ch o lo g ist for
N ash v ille 's school system and fa
ther o f a student at the school w here
T errance w as killed.
Since the shooting, N ashville
schools have established several dis
trict-w ide changes:
• A hotline provides a w ay for
students to anonym ously report a gun
at school. “ It is my b elief that stu
dents are our best early warning sys
tem ,” Thom pson said.
• A zero tolerance policy was
adopted in w hich students bringing a
weapon or drugs to school or who are
physically aggressive are expelled
from that school for one year and
m ust attend an alternative school
which has been established solely for
these students.
• Security cameras have been in
stalled in every high school.
• Faculty are training w ith a na
tional program called Crisis Preven
tion Intervention. “W e’redoing some
conflict resolution training with fac
ulty with the notion being that w e’re
helping them not escalate the con
flict and instead helping de-escalate
the agitated student,” Thompson said.
• Thom pson has provided a series
o f school violence workshops in
w hich representatives from every
N ashville school have attended.
Nashville has instituted a number
o f conflict resolution programs in
sc h o o ls, sa id Jim T u rb e v ille ,
N ashville’s director o f high schools.
However, he said, “one negative o f
conflict resolution is that some people
you can’t have resolution with and for
lack o f a better term. I’ll call them the
bullies o f the w orld," he said. “There
was the illusion that we could prevent
something like this and that there were
no weapons in school. It squashed
that illusion and made parents, teach
ers and principals m ore vigilant."
In the shootings’ afterm ath, T h
om pson and other school psycholo
gists steered parents toward positive,
constructive action, he said. For ex
am ple, several students and parents
w ent to T ennessee’s Capitol Hill to
It’s tim e for Americans to stop
pretending this kind o f shocking, m a
levolent violence "isn ’t supposed to
happen” in white enclaves that have
the trappings o f the A m erican Dream.
It is supposed to happened there—
because it keeps happening.
Why?
To force A m erica to honestly
discuss the impact on young m inds
o f the pervasiveness o f an entertain
ment culture that too often glorifies
extreme, mindless, random violence.
To urge A m erica to stop pretend
ing that the easy availability o f guns
and other im plem ents o f mass de
struction plays no role in all o f this.
To shock W hite A m erica out o f
the w idespread, racially -o rien ted
b elief that only those boys and young
men (it is males overwhelm ingly who
com m it such violence) who live in
poor black and Hispanic neighbor
hoods can fall prey to feelings o f
alienation and w orthlessness that
curdle into violent rage.
This is not happening am ong poor
black and Hispanic kids in inner cit
ies. It cannot be written o ff as a ‘ ’ghetto
or “b am o " problem which the rest of
.America need not pay heed to.
Indeed, after the Springfield, O r
egon school killings last M ay, Dr.
D eb o rah P ro th ro w -S tith , o f the
Harvard School o f Public Health,
suggested that these incidents are the
“ second w ave” o f the youth hom i-
protest a bill on the governor's desk
that perm itted the legal carrying o f
concealed weapons.
The governor signed the bill, but
the efforts were good for the parents,
Thom pson said. “W e tried to find a
w ay to put their energy into som e
thing positive instead o f blam ing
som eone for the shooting," he said.
Carol Davis is a free-lance writer
'
Í .4
¿ e that
K r it .»rvn%7i11
iH
cide
epidem
ic
convulsed i h black
and H ispanic inner-city neighbor
hoods in the 1980s and early 1990s.
“1 can’t, as a public health person,
she said on A B C ’s "Nightline,” “look
at w hat’s happened in schools over the
last six to eight months and say these
areisolatedevents. lfyou take troubled
kids and add guns and add a precipita
tion event in a society that glamorizes
explosive responses to anger, you’ve
got danger and I think it ’ s now happen
ing pretty m uch across the country.
W hat is driving young w hite boys
to these m urderous acts? W hat are
the com m onalties and w hat are the
differences betw een the present epi
dem ic o f youth violence and the ear
lier one in urban neighborhoods? W e
m ust recognize that beneath the m ur
derous hatred o f these killers lies a
profound, boiling rage that com es
from an even m ore profound sense o f
inadequacy and pain.
What is causing this?
For all our sakes, A m erica m ust
take this opportunity to explore the
racial issues em bedded in these dif
fering but connected outbreaks o f
significant youth violence.
A s the reig n in g su p e rp o w er,
Am erica tries to shield the world
from terrorism.
But the terrorism in our schools and
the terror in the hearts and minds o f
many o f our children, on all sides ofthe
color line, cry out for attention, too.
based in Nashville, Term.. and a former
editor for the Nashville Banner.
W arren Thom pson, clinical psy
chologist, N ashville school system ;
professor o f psychology, V anderbilt
University, N ashville, Tenn., 615-
259-8593.
Jim T urbeville, D irector o f H igh
S ch o o ls, N ash v ille. T enn., 615-
259-8770.
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