What to look for in school shootings? A counselor’s advice on grievances and anger escalation, and why children are starting to withdraw
But “the general public, they really don’t know what to look for,” said former FBI special agent and profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, who has studied school shootings for more than 20 years.
The key is to look out for drastic changes in behavior, said school safety consultant Melissa Reeves, past president of the National Association of School Psychologists.
It has increased outward behavior for some. “So we will see an escalation in grievances. An escalation, potentially, in anger. They will see an increase in difficulty managing their emotions.
“We’re still seeing significant changes, but they may now be starting to withdraw,” Reeves said. “They’re no longer interacting with groups of friends. They’re starting to spend more time on the internet.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/us/school-shootings-warning-signs-red-flags-xpn/index.html
Classroom Shootings are Warning Signals Red Flags, not a Threat to Victims or Explicit Witnesses
There is a chance that a teacher knows about a previous mass shooting and that their friends at the lunch table know about it.
“They’re typically done because the offender is really excited about what they’re going to do. Some people say it’s a cry for help … if they’re discovered beforehand, then they could be used for that purpose,” O’Toole said.
But for those bent on violence, “They plan it. They think about it. They fantasize about it. They prepare for it. And all of that period of time in which that is done, that’s very pleasant for them. They enjoy it.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/us/school-shootings-warning-signs-red-flags-xpn/index.html
“Just got my new beauty today”, a social media comment on a school shooting suspect’s Facebook posting and recommendations for a K-12 school security team
The 15-year-old suspect in the Oxford, Michigan school shooting posted a picture of a gun on social media with the caption: “Just got my new beauty today.” Karen McDonald is the prosecutor of Oakland County.
The post isn’t necessarily a cause for alarm by itself. Residents under the age of 18 can have a gun in certain circumstances.
The lead prosecutor said that a teacher had seen a drawing by the suspect that was pointing a semiautomatic handgun in the teacher’s direction. She states that the drawing of a bullet with the words blood everywhere written above it, along with the words “My life is useless”, is part of the package.
While a troubling social media post or a disturbing comment in class might not indicate any threat, it’s still worth telling a teacher or school official because others might have additional concerns, O’Toole said.
“Educate the students and the faculty to what the red-flag behaviors are … and make it so that students can call in on a confidential line,” O’Toole said.
“We strive for prevention – based on knowing what warning behaviors are, how to spot them and how to use appropriate intervention in an objective and compassionate way,” she said.
Regardless of how students report concerns, those messages should be actively monitored, and the information should go to a school threat assessment team, according to best practice recommendations from the US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center and US Department of Education.
The core team “should include an administrator, at least one school mental health professional (school psychologist, school counselor, school social worker), and a school resource officer (SRO)/law enforcement,” Reeves and colleagues wrote about behavioral threat assessment and management in K-12 schools.
“Oftentimes, when we’re doing the threat assessment is where we find out there’s abuse going on in the home. A parent is in jail because they just got arrested for domestic violence. Or the one grandma that was their caretaker who they loved just died. They feel like they have no one.
It’s not likely that law enforcement will be involved if an individual makes a threat but it isn’t true. School personnel are able to work with students and their families by using a process for resolving conflicts.
An officer of the law can become involved in consultative or direct role if the threat needs to be mitigated. … Reports involving weapons, threats of violence, and physical violence should immediately be reported to local law enforcement.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/us/school-shootings-warning-signs-red-flags-xpn/index.html
Detecting a Student with an AR-15-style rifle at school and putting it on the Internet to the Test: The Case of Kelvin Adams
The student was “immediately removed from the classroom” and taken to the guidance counselors’ office, where he told a counselor “the drawing was part of a video game he was designing,” the school district’s superintendent said.
The backpack was secured by staff and the child was removed from the classroom. Police said there were no threats made with the weapon and it was never displayed by the child.
“Self-reported information is some of the least reliable information that you can have. So you need to find other sources to corroborate what this person is telling you,” the former FBI special agent said.
“So you would certainly want to look for anything else that might suggest that this person is experiencing violent ideation of some kind,” she said. That means talking to the parents, teachers and even law enforcement to see if there have been any reports of incidents at the home.
The consequences should only be implemented after careful team consideration and should always be accompanied by supportive interventions, the team of psychologists wrote.
On the other hand, keeping the student of concern supervised at school “decreases the opportunity for them to be at home alone where they have more time to conduct research and plan how to carry out the act of violence.”
“We need parents to be more aware of what is happening in their child’s life and what they may have in their possession. We need students to report, but we also need parents to reach out when their child is struggling, as well as more engagement at home.
In October, after police said a 19-year-old gunman returned to his former St. Louis high school with an AR-15-style rifle and killed two people, the school district announced plans to add gun safety to its curriculum.
“Not just reading, writing, and arithmetic but reading, writing, arithmetic and gun safety,” Saint Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams said.
It is the whole of all those behaviors. One person could know about it. One person may know, ‘Yeah, I heard that he has access to a gun.’” Another person might report a concern about the same student.
Students are often in the best position to notice red flags because of their use of social media and outside of school.
The Stability and Safety of a 6-Year-Old School Teacher Involved in a Shooting on January 6
In Virginia, a six-year-old shot his first- grade teacher on January 6. The teacher is recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest and the school has since reopened with new security measures in place, including metal detectors.
“We were doing math … an announcer came on she was like, ‘lockdown, I repeat lockdown,’” said fifth grader Novah Jones, who was located in a different classroom. I hid under my desk because I did not know what to do and I was scared.
The teacher wounded in Friday’s shooting, whose injury was initially described as life-threatening, was listed in stable condition by Saturday, according to the Newport News Police Department.
James Madison University confirmed that the teacher is Abby Zwerner, even though authorities and the public school district did not name her.
The 6-year-old boy was taken into police custody, Police Chief Steve Drew said in a news conference, adding that “this was not an accidental shooting.”
Drew said that there had been an altercation between a teacher and a student with a gun. A single round was fired and no other students were involved, he added.
Drew told CNN that the students were taken to the gymnasium with the help of counselors and officers, after being evacuated from the school following the shooting.
Though she was able to return home safely, Novah said she had trouble sleeping that night, worried that “he still had the gun and he was going to come to my house.”
Novah is one of numerous children to grapple with the trauma of a shooting at school. Shootings in US schools, while still rare when compared with other incidents of gun violence, have become far more common than they are in any other country. CNN found that in the year 2022, there were at least 60 shootings at K-12 schools.
The school will remain closed Monday and Tuesday in order to give the community time to heal.
“It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6 year old 1st grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher; however, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today,” Newport News Mayor Phillip D. Jones said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Authorities are “working diligently to get an answer to the question we are all asking – how did this happen? We are also working to ensure the child receives the supports and services he needs as we continue to process what took place,” Jones said.
On Wednesday, a 58-year-old man was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor after an unloaded gun was found inside a 6-year-old’s backpack at a North Carolina school the day before, according to police. The Philadelphia area woman was arrested this week after a gun was found in her son’s backpack. In January, a Virginia teacher was shot and injured by her 6-year-old student.
In Pennsylvania, a mother in Norristown was arrested after her 6-year-old son brought a gun to Joseph K. Gotwals Elementary School on February 9, prosecutors said.
Jasmin Devlin, 30, turned herself in Tuesday and has been arraigned on charges of felony endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment for failing to secure a firearm in her home, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. It is unclear if Devlin currently has an attorney.
On a case of improper storage of a firearm to protect a minor: Norristown, North Carolina, attorney David Devlin
“I would like to commend the children who notified school officials immediately, thus preventing another tragedy at a school,” Norristown Acting Police Chief Michael Bishop said in the news release. “These children are the true heroes in this unfortunate incident. They provided the school officials with a notification which resulted in an immediate response from the police.
Devlin obtained the gun through a straw purchase conducted by a Norristown man on March 4, 2022, the statement from the district attorney’s office said. Straw purchases happen when a person who is ineligible buys a gun for someone else.
She has been ordered to not have any contact with children as part of her bond conditions. A preliminary hearing in the case is set for February 24.
In North Carolina, Marvin Ray Davis was charged with a count of improper storage of a firearm to protect a minor after an unloaded 9mm handgun was found in a 6-year-old child’s backpack.
There is an explanation as to why Davis lived in the same home as the child. He was issued a $4,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Rocky Mount Court on March 1, the release said.
It’s unclear if Davis has an attorney and CNN has made several attempts to contact him. CNN has also reached out to Nash County Public Schools for comment.
“The situation … should be a reminder to all gun owners to secure their weapons in a safe manner so that minors cannot possess them,” Rocky Mount Police Chief Robert Hassell said. He said that the situation was preventable.
The child’s mother was arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and allowing access to a loaded firearm by children. Lopez was released on a criminal summons. CNN tried to reach Lopez for comment.
Norfolk Public Schools spokeswoman Michelle Washington told CNN that police arrived at the school after students had been dismissed for the day and other children had been sent home. “School administration immediately enacted safety and security protocols including calling Norfolk Police,” Washington said. “School administration also immediately contacted division leadership and the Communications office.”
The division has put in place security measures, including installing video doorbell cameras at every school and requiring visitors to go through a background check before entering a school.
Washington said the school board is considering a proposal to purchase weapons detection systems for all schools in the division, as well as upgrade school security cameras, hiring 18 additional security officers, and creating additional security supervisors.