I was on the WCF Courier website when I came across an article about a school shooting in Colorado. The shooting occurred Tuesday February 23 at 3:30 PM. This shooting occurred just a few miles from the Columbine high school shooting. Only two students were shot, Reagan Webber and Matt Thieu. Both victims were taken to the hospital and both had surgery Tuesday evening. Reagan and Matt are both expected to be fine. After shooting these two students the gun-man went to reload his high-powered rifle, at that time a math teacher from the school, David Benke, tackled the suspect and prevented him from firing anymore shots. The gunman was identified as Bruco Eastwood. They have no motive for the shooting. Mr. Eastwood had been in the school on different occasion and had been inside the building shortly being the shooting occurred. One student stated that he heard Mr. Eastwood ask two students if they went to school here. When the students answered yes, he shot them.
It is sad that school shooting happen. I'm just happy that no one was killed and the suspect was taken down before more damage could be done. It was very brave of David Benke to tackle the suspect, but his actions probably saved many lives. I wonder why this guy decided to shoot kids at this middle school. Authorities have not released Mr. Eastwood connection to the school if there is one. The way the shooting took place is just kind of random. What if those kids said that they didn't go to the school would he have let them go and not shoot them? I have many questions about this case and I hope that they release more information soon. What is also scary is that this shooting occurred so closely to the Columbine shooting, which I'm sure, everyone has heard about.
Here is a website from the Courier:
http://www.wcfcourier.com/news/local/article_b964f0a0-212b-11df-9587-001cc4c03286.html
School shooting are always devastating. They usually involve an individual who is suffering from several anxiety and depression related illnesses. Because of this it is so hard to detect when something like this is going to happen. I have always been interested in what makes people tick and go over the edge and do such a heinous crime. On FOXNews.com, I found a list of school shootings in the past 10 years (it's a little outdated). Here is a link to that site:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266371,00.html
Hopefully someday we will be able to detect and prevent situations like this from happening. Unfortunately I believe we have a long way to go.
As a potential future educator, school shootings are something that are quite fearful to me, as I am sure they are to anyone who interacts with a school on a daily bases. Teachers are often taught to look for signs in students, signs that these students could be depressed or suffer from some other sort of disorder. However, often times this training does not seem to be enough. It is unfortunate that even when there are warning signs, some other crimes, such as this one, show almost none. When the motivation is absent, the crime becomes much more dangerous. If the perpetrator simply wants to kill, preventing crimes become much more difficult. Because of this reason, there should be more stringent security devices in place at schools. Things such as metal detectors and possible even security guards to protect the students. Many argue that this would affect the learning environments, but perhaps it is more important to protect the students. These crimes are just too horrible to allow to keep happening.