The American Centurians
04-21-2007, 07:19 PM
"STUDENTS AT RISK?"
The tragedy this week at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia was both a shock and surprise to not only the university but to all of America. It was without a doubt the worst incident in American history pertaining to the mass shooting of so many people. Cho Seung-Hui, a 23 year old senior student who lived on campus, shot and killed 32 students and staff during the morning of Monday, April 16, 2007. Another 28 people were wounded or injured during the incident. Why? A question authorities will be looking to answer but may never really know since the killer committed suicide before being apprehended.
Unfortunately, this "school massacre" was not the first and may not be the last time this country will again be shocked by such events. Until the incident at Virginia Tech, the deadliest shooting in American history occurred in 1991 when an individual named George Hennard drove his pickup truck into a public cafeteria in Killeen, Texas and shot and killed 23 customers before shooting himself. The second deadliest event occurred in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado when two troubled high school students engaged in a planned shooting spree killing 12 students and 1 teacher while wounding 24 others before killing themselves. However, we seem to be use to crime in our cities and towns but surprised when it occurs in our schools. The following list of selected crimes at our colleges and universities over the past years may demonstrate that maybe we should not be surprised:
July 13, 1966: Richard Speck enters the townhouse of 8 nursing school students of the South Chicago Community Hospital. He proceeds to stab, strangle, rape and murder them all.
August 1, 1966: Charles Whitman climbs a tower at the University of Texas and for about 1 ½ hours begins randomly shooting with a rifle resulting in 16 people killed and 31 people wounded.
May 4, 1970: National Guard troops, in an attempt to quell anti-war protests at Kent State University in Ohio, shoot and kill 4 students and wound 9 others.
July 12, 1976: In the library of California State University, Edward Allaway, a school custodian, shoots and kills 7 fellow school employees and wounds 2 others.
January 15, 1978: The infamous serial killer Ted Bundy wanders onto the campus of Florida State University where he enters a sorority house and bludgeons, beats and strangles 4 sleeping students resulting in 2 dead and 2 severely injured.
April 5, 1986: A female student is sleeping in her dormitory room at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Another university student enters the dormitory and beats, rapes and kills her.
November 1, 1991: At the University of Iowa, a graduate student in physics shoots and kills 5 members of the school physics department and then kills himself. The reason was that he was upset over being passed over for academic honors.
January 26, 1995: A former law student of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill shoots and kills two people and wounds a police officer.
August 15, 1996: A graduate engineering student at San Diego State University is in the process of presenting and defending his graduate thesis before a faculty committee. The student suddenly pulls out a gun and kills 3 professors.
August 28, 2000: A 36 year old graduate student at the University of Arkansas is dropped from his doctoral degree program. The student shoots and kills both himself and his doctoral professor.
January 16, 2002: A 42 year old law school student, who was recently dismissed from the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia, returns to the campus and shoots and kills the school dean, a professor and a student while wounding three other students.
September 2, 2006: A visiting parent to the campus of Shepherd University in West Virginia shoots and kills his two sons, who were students, and then himself.
October 28, 2006: At the University of Arizona, a failing nursing school student walks into an instructor’s office and shoots and kills her. The student then enters one of the nursing school classrooms and kills two more instructors before killing himself.
April 2, 2007: A school researcher is shot to death in her office at the University of Washington by her former boyfriend who then kills himself.
Our colleges and universities, are like the small cities and towns we live in today. Virginia Tech consisted of over 2,500 acres and 26,000 students. Both consist of good and bad people. Both have economic, political and social problems. Both have crime. Both have security and safety problems. Both have the potential to be the site of shocking and brutal events. Crime is definitely an equal opportunity employer. It can occur at both private and public schools in either rural or urban settings. It is the magnitude of the recent Virginia Tech incident that shocks us. One murder is bad enough; but the multiple senseless murders are shocking and disturbing to us all. My former school, Florida State University, is a vast open campus consisting of about 39,000 enrolled students who reside on and off campus. During the three year period from 2003-2005, the following crimes were reported: 25 rapes; 23 robberies; 21 aggrevated assaults; 184 burglaries; 3 arsons; and 70 motor vehicle thefts. Since 1990, colleges and universities are required by federal law to compile and disclose to all parents and students campus security information to include crime statistics for the campus and surrounding area. Unless we decide to turn our institutions into armed fortresses, there is little which can prevent the random unexpected acts of sick individuals against the innocent citizens (students and staff) of our schools. Especially the acts of those who are willing to be caught or kill themselves while in the commission of their crimes. The perpetrator may be a student, a staff member or an outsider.
This editorial has primarily addressed opinions and thoughts regarding the safety and security of our college and university campuses. Obviously, our elementary and high schools, as evidenced by the Columbine and the small one room Pennsylvania Quaker school tragedies, are not immune from the threat of unexpected violence.
So what can be done? What we can do is pray that such events will be rare or never happen again! What we can do is hope that the "predators" can be identified and stopped before they decide to act! What we can do is demand that our schools have excellent emergency action plans as well as routine campus security operations which will be implemented to eliminate or minimize the potential effects of threats to the safety and security of our students. What we need to do is realize that our schools are not safe havens, as much as we wish they were, from the real world or society we all live in on a daily basis and insure our students realize it also.
alan
www.theamericancenturians.com
(check out the website and sign the guestbook)
The tragedy this week at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia was both a shock and surprise to not only the university but to all of America. It was without a doubt the worst incident in American history pertaining to the mass shooting of so many people. Cho Seung-Hui, a 23 year old senior student who lived on campus, shot and killed 32 students and staff during the morning of Monday, April 16, 2007. Another 28 people were wounded or injured during the incident. Why? A question authorities will be looking to answer but may never really know since the killer committed suicide before being apprehended.
Unfortunately, this "school massacre" was not the first and may not be the last time this country will again be shocked by such events. Until the incident at Virginia Tech, the deadliest shooting in American history occurred in 1991 when an individual named George Hennard drove his pickup truck into a public cafeteria in Killeen, Texas and shot and killed 23 customers before shooting himself. The second deadliest event occurred in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado when two troubled high school students engaged in a planned shooting spree killing 12 students and 1 teacher while wounding 24 others before killing themselves. However, we seem to be use to crime in our cities and towns but surprised when it occurs in our schools. The following list of selected crimes at our colleges and universities over the past years may demonstrate that maybe we should not be surprised:
July 13, 1966: Richard Speck enters the townhouse of 8 nursing school students of the South Chicago Community Hospital. He proceeds to stab, strangle, rape and murder them all.
August 1, 1966: Charles Whitman climbs a tower at the University of Texas and for about 1 ½ hours begins randomly shooting with a rifle resulting in 16 people killed and 31 people wounded.
May 4, 1970: National Guard troops, in an attempt to quell anti-war protests at Kent State University in Ohio, shoot and kill 4 students and wound 9 others.
July 12, 1976: In the library of California State University, Edward Allaway, a school custodian, shoots and kills 7 fellow school employees and wounds 2 others.
January 15, 1978: The infamous serial killer Ted Bundy wanders onto the campus of Florida State University where he enters a sorority house and bludgeons, beats and strangles 4 sleeping students resulting in 2 dead and 2 severely injured.
April 5, 1986: A female student is sleeping in her dormitory room at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Another university student enters the dormitory and beats, rapes and kills her.
November 1, 1991: At the University of Iowa, a graduate student in physics shoots and kills 5 members of the school physics department and then kills himself. The reason was that he was upset over being passed over for academic honors.
January 26, 1995: A former law student of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill shoots and kills two people and wounds a police officer.
August 15, 1996: A graduate engineering student at San Diego State University is in the process of presenting and defending his graduate thesis before a faculty committee. The student suddenly pulls out a gun and kills 3 professors.
August 28, 2000: A 36 year old graduate student at the University of Arkansas is dropped from his doctoral degree program. The student shoots and kills both himself and his doctoral professor.
January 16, 2002: A 42 year old law school student, who was recently dismissed from the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia, returns to the campus and shoots and kills the school dean, a professor and a student while wounding three other students.
September 2, 2006: A visiting parent to the campus of Shepherd University in West Virginia shoots and kills his two sons, who were students, and then himself.
October 28, 2006: At the University of Arizona, a failing nursing school student walks into an instructor’s office and shoots and kills her. The student then enters one of the nursing school classrooms and kills two more instructors before killing himself.
April 2, 2007: A school researcher is shot to death in her office at the University of Washington by her former boyfriend who then kills himself.
Our colleges and universities, are like the small cities and towns we live in today. Virginia Tech consisted of over 2,500 acres and 26,000 students. Both consist of good and bad people. Both have economic, political and social problems. Both have crime. Both have security and safety problems. Both have the potential to be the site of shocking and brutal events. Crime is definitely an equal opportunity employer. It can occur at both private and public schools in either rural or urban settings. It is the magnitude of the recent Virginia Tech incident that shocks us. One murder is bad enough; but the multiple senseless murders are shocking and disturbing to us all. My former school, Florida State University, is a vast open campus consisting of about 39,000 enrolled students who reside on and off campus. During the three year period from 2003-2005, the following crimes were reported: 25 rapes; 23 robberies; 21 aggrevated assaults; 184 burglaries; 3 arsons; and 70 motor vehicle thefts. Since 1990, colleges and universities are required by federal law to compile and disclose to all parents and students campus security information to include crime statistics for the campus and surrounding area. Unless we decide to turn our institutions into armed fortresses, there is little which can prevent the random unexpected acts of sick individuals against the innocent citizens (students and staff) of our schools. Especially the acts of those who are willing to be caught or kill themselves while in the commission of their crimes. The perpetrator may be a student, a staff member or an outsider.
This editorial has primarily addressed opinions and thoughts regarding the safety and security of our college and university campuses. Obviously, our elementary and high schools, as evidenced by the Columbine and the small one room Pennsylvania Quaker school tragedies, are not immune from the threat of unexpected violence.
So what can be done? What we can do is pray that such events will be rare or never happen again! What we can do is hope that the "predators" can be identified and stopped before they decide to act! What we can do is demand that our schools have excellent emergency action plans as well as routine campus security operations which will be implemented to eliminate or minimize the potential effects of threats to the safety and security of our students. What we need to do is realize that our schools are not safe havens, as much as we wish they were, from the real world or society we all live in on a daily basis and insure our students realize it also.
alan
www.theamericancenturians.com
(check out the website and sign the guestbook)