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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2006-09-28

This Just Makes Me Ill

And if it doesn't make everybody else out there sick, you're just not human.

The gunman has not been identified. He carried a handgun into the school about 11:30 a.m. and fired a shot into the ceiling as he took over a second floor classroom.

Authorities negotiated the release of four of the girls one by one over the course of the afternoon. An unknown number were sexually assaulted before they were released, the source said.

One of the two hostages who were not released, a 16-year-old junior, died after being shot by the attacker when police burst into the room about 3:45 p.m. to end the stalemate.

So many questions.

As a teacher, would I have had the courage to get as many kids out of the room as I could, and then refused to leave myself until all of the others got out safely?

As a martial artist, would I have been quick enough to . . . you know?

As a father, could I have stayed behind with the girls, knowing that somewhere my girls would be wondering where I was?

As a Christian, could I have been able to find the words to bring the Spirit into the room to bring the peace to this young man that apparently had escaped him on his own?

As a school administrator, could I have left the building knowing some of my children were still in there?

It's easy, I suppose, from a small distance to think you could have done something, to imagine that you would have handled it differently. In reality, I think the school staff needs to be roundly congratulated on an orderly evacuation of 454 students, and the sheriff's department needs to be congratulated on the negotiated release of 4 others, and the rescue of one.

But, of course, we're all going to dwell on the one that didn't get away.

Already the media has started the stupidity: Channel 4's Jim Benemann led off tonight's 10 o'clock with the question "why aren't our schools safer?"

Well, idiot, it's only because the rest of society isn't safer, and schools are little but a microcosm of society at large. Just think: JonBenet Ramsey, Natalee Holloway, Chandra Levy, Andrea Yates, Susan Smith--and these are just the ones that make the headlines. I'm constantly reminded that my children may one day disappear because some sick bastard decides to snap in their vicinity.

Sadly, that fear came true for one family today.

We know very little about the murderer. Early reports are that he is--was--an adult male. Great. So what was his relationship to these girls, if any? What was his affiliation with the school, if any? What was his current level of psychological and/or pharmacological care, if any?

Maybe he was just a sick adult, driven by an addiction to kiddie porn, fueled by the internet, enabled by those who refuse to regulate the internet. The sexual assaults would seem to suggest that. Maybe he was just a sick adult, lately jilted out of a relationship with a 16-year old girl, unable to cope in a society that--rightfully--condemns that action but is unwilling to condemn him for that action (pretty important distinction, that). Maybe he's A VICTIM of cruel, insensitive bullying, constantly jeered and mocked by women around him, and society has told him nothing since Columbine except that such behavior as today is explainable, though not quite excusable, and that it's really the society around him that has to change so sick bastards like him never get created again. He's just a messenger, in that unfortunate instance.

Or maybe none of this is true. Maybe he's just the one guy that nobody ever felt quite right around, that people often wondered when he was gonna crack. And that nobody did anything for.

We may never quite understand all of the reasons for today's events. My Faith drives me to believe that some good has to come from this senseless tragedy, but what the good will be is known only to God.

So, for now, I'll just hug my girls a little tighter as they go to bed, whisper an extra prayer as I go to sleep, wake up a little more alert, enter my schools a little more warily, and try to get in a good stretch every morning before work.

And look into home schooling . . .sooner rather than later.
Posted by: Michael / 9/28/2006 12:12:00 AM

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