School Shootings Dominate News As Nov. 7 Elections Draw Closer
November 1, 2006

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Just two weeks before the mid-term federal elections and balloting in most states for state legislatures and many governors, there is an unusual mix of news stories—everything from congresspersons who misbehave to the recent spate of school shootings.

But the first of these stories deals with elections and is rather curious.

According to Associated Press (AP), a federal judge on Oct. 4 struck down a first-of-its-kind voting rule that required naturalized citizens in Ohio to provide proof of their citizenship if challenged by a poll worker.

A group of naturalized citizens, backed by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued in August, alleging the law singled out one group of citizens and placed an unfair burden on them.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell agreed that the rule was unconstitutional and did not challenge the lawsuit at a court hearing.

Judge Christopher Boyko said the rule raised concerns of profiling and would have been detrimental to the voting rights of naturalized citizens.

“There can be no second-class American as far as any court is concerned,” Boyko said. He asked that his decision be disseminated to other states.

Poll workers might have profiled voters based on their appearance, speech or manners, the judge said.

“How offensive it would be to be singled out by a poll worker,” he said.

The law was believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

When the lawsuit was filed, Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor, said the rule was unenforceable.

Amid cries that illegal immigrants are allowed, or even encouraged, to vote in some districts, Ohio lawmakers had tried to sort out those who are citizens and those who are not. But apparently, the answer isn’t as simple as some would think.

School Security Experts
Just three days after a Wisconsin principal was gunned down in a hallway, state and national school safety experts admitted even the best security plan may not have prevented the bloodshed, and elsewhere, other experts were telling people that there is no such thing as foolproof security.

The Wisconsin gathering had been scheduled long before the gunfire on Sept. 29 that killed Principal John Klang of Weston Schools in Cazenovia.

The experts talked about improving safety but acknowledged that no metal detector, integrated emergency response plan or lock down procedure can stop those most motivated to do harm.

“You can’t prevent everything because you can’t develop prisons out of your schools,” said Mary Jean Erschen, director of the Center for Emergency Health and Safety in Schools, according to an AP report.

“You can’t have all the doors locked all the time.”

Even though Klang was killed, how he and others at Weston responded when a 15-year-old student entered the front door armed with a rifle and handgun has been widely praised for preventing what could have been more bloodshed. One school official called 911, another put the school in lock down and Klang confronted the student.

That is nearly a textbook example of how to respond, Erschen said.

But if even the best plans can still result in death, what’s the point?

The key is for students and staff members to be on the lookout for indicators of violence and step in before it is too late, said Michael Dorn, executive director of the Georgia-based nonprofit school safety center Safe Havens International.

“Can you prevent everything? Absolutely not,” he said at the Oct. 2 seminar at Eau Claire Memorial High School.

Dorn said schools need broad safety plans that can cover things like chemical spills or accidents rather than fixating on the high-profile and rare violent episodes like the Columbine shooting in Colorado in 1999 and the shooting of Klang.

Despite the attention given to school shootings, national statistics show that schools are actually less violent now than they have been for decades, Dorn said.

Student Training First
At least one school district is taking progressive action. The Independent School District of Burleson, TX, just south of Ft. Worth, is the first in the country to adopt a policy of training students to immediately fight back and use their advantage in numbers to take tactical control if a gunman enters their classroom, according to ABCNews.

A group of Texas security experts with a company called “Response Options” has made instructional video tapes showing a gunman bursting into a classroom and being swarmed by students. The instructors tell students to throw their books, book bags, desk and chairs using everything and anything to disrupt and take down a gunman. Robin Browne, a major with the British Army, helped design the training course and says it is necessary for students and teachers to throw themselves into the line of fire.

“This is not a burglar. This is not a bank robber,” Browne said. “This is someone who has come onto school property with the express intention of using a deadly weapon to hurt and dominate people who cannot necessarily defend themselves.” A person who enters a school, Browne said, “is in the same category as serial killers.”

“We are dealing with a predator here and a predator, when he is offered prey and the prey gives in will take advantage of that prey,” he said. “What we are teaching here is for the children to not allow the predator to take control. … They actually become the superior the dominant party in the room, and it is actually the gunman who becomes the prey.”

Browne says waiting for police to take control is a deadly mistake and says that 15 people who died and 24 were injured at Columbine as police struggled to take control. By the time police responded at the Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, PA, students and school officials had lost control and ultimately, five girls died and the gunman, Charles Roberts, killed himself.

Burleson has 14 schools and 8,500 students and the independent school district hopes to have every student trained to respond to a gunman by the end of 2007.

Utah Teacher Training
Not to be undone in reporting responses to school shootings, CBS told how Clark Aposhian is running his first gun training class exclusively for teachers in Salt Lake City, UT. Although turnout was sparse, the pupils were enthusiastic.

“We stick our heads in the sand when it comes to ability to protect ourselves,” Aposhian told CBS’ “Early Show” correspondent Hattie Kauffman.

Holes in student safety were brought to the forefront after three fatal school shootings within a few weeks. The deadliest was at the one-room Amish school house in Pennsylvania, where five school girls were killed. (See related commentary on Page 4.)

The teachers in Aposhian’s class are training to get licensed to carry a gun to school. They feel having a gun in the classroom will help them should a threat arise.

“If someone’s going to get into this school and harm the kids, there needs to be an immediate and deadly response,” said Nick Pond, a teacher. “That could be an amazing deterrence to anyone who wants to harm kids.”

“When I walk in there, that class is mine and I would do anything to keep from one of those children getting harmed,” teacher David Westley said.

Aposhian said that experience has taught us that having unarmed teachers has not produced good results.

“We’ll never know if in Baley or Pennsylvania or Red Lake, MN, if a firearm discreetly carried by a teacher or an administrator or custodian would have stopped these shootings, if it would have saved any lives at all,” he said. “However, we can tell you with absolute certainty what happened when no firearms were carried by teachers.”

The debate continues, and some light appears, but will it survive the “sensitivity” of policy makers.

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