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Fatal School Shooting In Ohio

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 11:23:11 AM EST
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A suspect has been taken into custody in a school shooting in Chardon, Ohio. As of now, one student has died and four are wounded. Chardon is 30 miles outside of Cleveland.

The student opened fire at 7:30 am in the cafetera.

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    Fatal School Shooting In Ohio | 19 comments (19 topical)

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    My heart (5.00 / 3) (#1)
    by Zorba on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 12:35:10 PM EST
    and prayers and thoughts go out to the victims' families, especially the loved ones of the dead student, but also to the wounded, and all the students and faculty there.  I have a somewhat tenuous connection to a student who attends Chardon High School.  The kid's grandmother is the close friend of one of my oldest friends.  I have met the grandmother on numerous occasions, and have even met the parents and their children, who go to Chardon schools.  First thing this morning, I got an email from my friend, who basically said that the grandmother and the parents are nervous wrecks, but their kids in the Chardon schools are all okay.  I've visited Chardon- a very nice community.  You never think that this type of thing will happen where you live, or where your kids go to school.

    I Fear This Will be the Norm (5.00 / 1) (#6)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 02:27:58 PM EST
    Instead of a rarity, knowing someone involved in a school shooting.

    Makes me sad for:

    • these kids that are so lost that this is an appealing idea
    • the kids who have to fear this at a place that should be fun
    • the bullies who have violent homes
    • the future kids who will treated as criminals when entering this school
    • the parents that have one more worry to add to their already full plates


    Parent
    in a lot of urban neighborhoods (5.00 / 0) (#8)
    by CST on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 02:53:00 PM EST
    this has been the norm for a very long time.

    Just because the shootings don't happen in school doesn't mean kids aren't being shot.  It just usually doesn't make the national news.

    My sister works in a charter school in the city.  Any time someone gets shot it seems like it's a friend/cousin/whatever of one of her students.  This $hit has been going on for 2 decades at least.

    Parent

    Student was bullied outcast (none / 0) (#2)
    by BackFromOhio on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 01:04:10 PM EST
    Does anyone else think condoning of adult bullying on many of the reality shows support the bullying culture?

    I think that (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by Zorba on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 01:14:53 PM EST
    those are not making things any better, but that bullying in schools went on (with the administrations looking the other way) long, long before there were reality shows on television.  Of course, when I went to school (back in the Pleistocene), we never heard of any kid who brought a gun to school to settle such scores.  Fist fights, there were.  Even, on occasion, knife fights in some schools.  Guns?  Not so much (or at least, we never heard about them).

    Parent
    I Can't Ever (none / 0) (#7)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 02:45:58 PM EST
     ...remember a fight with anything but fists, the biggest fear wasn't weapons, but multiple people.

    And guns... I actually took skeet shooting in 10th grade, 1986, anyone could take it and we handled and shot 20 or 12 gauge guns on school property.

    I think social media is making the shame 1000 times worse.  Instead of me getting my daily pounding and maybe a couple people knowing about it back in the day.  Today, everyone in school would know about before it's even done.  And then it's squared and cubed and the whole school has dished before I even walk in the front door at home.  

    And god forbid some idiot films it and post it on YouTube...

    Parent

    when I was in highschool (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by CST on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 03:02:09 PM EST
    we had a bomb threat - and a student that was found with the makings for explosives in his locker.  And a hit list.  There were also various gang fights where a classmate of mine was beaten with a metal pipe (outside of school).  Another kid was stabbed - and I went to a "nerd" high school by public school standards.

    In elementary school someone (not associated with my school) was shot on the subway while we were on it on a field trip.

    I have always had to watch myself walking home from the train, I'm not a target but the stray bullet fear is real.

    Maybe social media is making it worse, or maybe social media is just making people more aware of when there is a problem.

    Parent

    I think it's two pretty distinct things (5.00 / 0) (#13)
    by Dadler on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 03:47:15 PM EST
    One, sadly, goes on all the time, as you talk about, in the city, and has to do with poverty, hopelessness, lack of opportunity, racism, all the things that make the ghetto the ghetto -- and I lived there as a small child, frightened every day, so I can understand it.  The other is the relatively new phenomenon of the suburban loner kid who starts shooting at school, which has to do with things more the product of complete emotional alienation, disconnection, the sick social circus that is American adolescence, a consumerism of the soul if you will.  This is the kind of thing social media exacerbates terribly with kids.  Inner city kids don't have all the gadgets suburban kids do; hell, most inner city schools have metal detectors these days, those kids couldn't get a gun near the place.

    Indeed though, as you say, violence is only news  if the victims have the right demo.  That mentality makes everything worse.  And with my son recently having to defend himself against bullying, this issue hits home right now in bigger way.  

    That said, count me as amazed and infuriated, in the year 2012, that every neighborhood school in America isn't the envy of the world, isn't a place where kids can go to get AWAY from this kind of sh*t for the day, wherever on the economic ladder they reside.  Color me naive and idealistic.

    Parent

    Indeed (none / 0) (#9)
    by Zorba on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 02:59:15 PM EST
    My husband was on his public big-city high school's rifle marksmanship team.  He used to carry his rifle (in a carrying case) on the city bus to go to school on the days they had practice or meets.  Do they even have rifle marksmanship teams in public schools these days?  I did a lot of archery in high school.  Do they still even do archery?  The school I went to didn't have a rifle marksmanship team, but it was a mixed suburban/rural high school.  Virtually all of the kids who came from farming families (and there were quite a few) had rifles and/or shotguns at home.  Nobody ever brought them to school to settle grudges, though.  I do think that you are onto something about the social media, Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging, and so on, making things worse.  There aren't just a few kids who know about your being bullied- the whole school, as well as everyone else who cares to look, knows about it.

    Parent
    Not Just Knowing About it... (5.00 / 0) (#14)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 04:37:55 PM EST
    ... joining in and emailing, texting, of FB'ing with the vile voracity of a right wing blog.
    _______

    I totally forgot about archery.

    I would imagine any administrator bringing up guns, even rifles or skeet, at schools would be fired on the spot.  Think if someone actually used it, people would be jailed for negligence.

    I also remember we had a smoking lounge outside and it was... I wouldn't say packed, but there was a crowd, even during the harsh Wisconsin winters.  Imagine a school today giving 15+ years old a spot to smoke on school grounds.

    My point is I wonder if all the rules are contributing, there's no relieve valves and a hell of a lot more pressure.  I see these little kids at the bus stop with so many books they need bags with wheels.  I can probably count on both hands how many times I took books home my whole public education years, and I 41, so a little over 20 years ago.  Homework was for suckers back then, at least to me.

    Parent

    Yes, well, (5.00 / 1) (#16)
    by Zorba on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 06:36:28 PM EST
    I was a pretty good archer in my day.  ;-)  I suppose I could have shot someone with an arrow (not that I would have).
    And in my high school, we also had a smoking area outdoors for the kids who smoked.
    As for the pressure on kids now, I think you're right.  The "old rules" used to be, no more homework than the child's grade times ten, by the minute.  In other words, if you were in grade four, no more than 40 minutes of homework.  Even in grade twelve, no more than two hours of homework per night.  I think that those rules have way gone by the wayside.  In fact, I was so involved in after-school activities, I frequently did my homework in high school during lunch hour.  And yet, I still managed to wind up with a straight-A average and score a National Merit Scholarship to college (which, by the way, paid my entire tuition at a very good private school, and I don't think that's the case with any academic scholarships in this day and age, although that's another story).
    Different times, my friend, different times.  I often think that there is way more pressure on kids now, and I don't think that education is any better for it.  In fact, it seems to me that kids are learning less and less that is important, as opposed to what the education authorities think is more important.  Such as passing mandated tests, as opposed to learning critical thinking skills.  Ah, well, I guess I'm old.

    Parent
    Well They Are Certainly Learning... (none / 0) (#17)
    by ScottW714 on Tue Feb 28, 2012 at 11:27:13 AM EST
    ...how to get the hell out of school when someone starts shooting up the place.
    ------------

    The archery must be in your DNA, because I remember a lot of the people while not trying to shooting anyone, the arrows going in all directions.  No one got hit hard, but even in 8th grade I remember thinking this is dangerous.

    Can't remember if I was any good, but my brother is a big hunter, so he's got compound bows, and guns, and even a musket.  Not nearly as good of a shot as I used to be, and the bows these days got... I don't think it's a laser, but there are red dots on the aiming deal.  Way too complicated for me, I like the re-curved.

    And I was maybe a B- student, but I took ever art and goof class I could for curve value.  So probably not the homework blueprint for anyone...

    Parent

    I don't know (none / 0) (#18)
    by Zorba on Tue Feb 28, 2012 at 12:57:05 PM EST
    how much of the archery is in my DNA, but I turned out to be a pretty good marksman, too.  (I took rifle marksmanship in college, and earned my marksman patch pretty quickly.  Don't want to sound like I'm bragging, because I think it has more to do with a good eye and a steady arm than any huge talent- and maybe those two things are in the DNA.)  Maybe I just like sharp, pointy, potentially dangerous things.  I also took fencing in college, and now, I have an ever-growing collection of good kitchen knives.

    And isn't it sad that what the kids must know now is how to get out of school during a shooting, or how to duck and cover if they can't get out.


    Parent

    No (5.00 / 0) (#4)
    by ScottW714 on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 01:34:18 PM EST
    Cave men I suspect were bullying each other, it's encoding in our DNA for mating & hierarchy.

    And although reality TV exposes it, it surely didn't create it.  And if filming stopped tomorrow, these incidents wouldn't.

    I think the real source is people simply not understanding how corrosive it is on teenage minds, and while not condoning it, surely not doing enough curtail it when they see it.

    Plus a lot of these people, including adults, have underlying mental issues.  And with the kids it's generally why they are picked on, because they are different.

    Parent

    We've had tens-of-thousands (none / 0) (#5)
    by jondee on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 01:56:26 PM EST
    of years to things to code other thing into our DNA - other than 'herd culling' behaviors sanctioned by the societal Social Darwinist subtext. We may have to go, but we don't go smear the jungle jim 'territory' with our excrement. And there's a difference between a wink and a blink.

    But, when you have a (pseudo) liberal President characterizing the educational experience for young people as a "race to the top" (elbowing competiters out of the way), it may not bode well for the rest of us.

    wow jondee (none / 0) (#11)
    by The Addams Family on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 03:15:02 PM EST
    coming over to the dark side?

    But, when you have a (pseudo) liberal President characterizing the educational experience for young people as a "race to the top" (elbowing competiters out of the way), it may not bode well for the rest of us.


    Parent
    just don't try to tell (none / 0) (#12)
    by jondee on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 03:28:15 PM EST
    me Miss "We'll obliterate Iran" is some kind of progressive, and we'll have nothing to argue about..

    Parent
    if you're talking about (none / 0) (#15)
    by The Addams Family on Mon Feb 27, 2012 at 05:13:17 PM EST
    She Who Shall Not Be Named, then we have nothing to argue about

    Parent
    The death toll (none / 0) (#19)
    by Zorba on Tue Feb 28, 2012 at 01:01:06 PM EST
    is now up to three.  Three young lives cut short, and many more students who will live with psychological scars for a long, long time.  Very, very sad.

    Fatal School Shooting In Ohio | 19 comments (19 topical)

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