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
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P ublisher
It Is Supposed To Happen There
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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
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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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