Category: school shootings

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A 13-Year-Old Girl Was Charged with a Felony for Doing “Finger Guns” at School

A middle school student in Kansas was arrested and charged with a felony after pointing her fingers, in the shape of a gun, at five classmates before turning her finger gun on herself.

A felony.

The incident happened at Westridge Middle School in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City.

The 13-year-old student reportedly mimed the actions in response to being asked by another student to point out “five people you would kill,” according to Overland Park Chief of Police Frank Donchez.

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Students reported the incident through the districts anonymous website form, meant to allow students to turn in bullies without fear of reprisal, and school principal Jeremy McDonnell stepped in to interview those involved.

He then contacted the school’s resource officer, according to Donchez.

“The officer then determined that several of the students are genuinely fearful of this girl, and combined with prior knowledge that he has, felt that an arrest was warranted.”

The student clearly has prior incidents in her past that concerned school officials, but Donchez says he won’t share them since the girl is a minor, and the district declined to comment.

The girl is facing a criminal charge and, if found guilty, time in a juvenile detention center.

She’s now living with her grandfather, Jon Cavanaugh, in California, and he had this to say about the situation.

“I think that this is something that probably could have been handled in the principal’s office and got completely out of hand. She was just mouthing off.”

As for Donchez, he resents reports and headlines claiming the arrest was made due to simple hand gestures.

“Victims in this case were genuinely concerned and fearful of this individual. When you combine that with the history that we’re aware of, and the students are aware of, when you combine all that and that these individuals were genuinely in fear, that’s why the arrest was made.”

This isn’t even close to the first incident of its kind – a first grader was suspended for finger guns in 2015, and the year before that a 10-year-old in Ohio was suspended for similar actions. In 2018, an adult in Pennsylvania was found guilty of disorderly conduct for pointing a finger gun at his neighbor.

But this gurl has been charged with a felony – something that is a first. Donchez defended his decision, saying, “I’ll take heat all day long for arresting a 13-year-old. I’m not willing to take the heat for not preventing a school tragedy.”

If only we could get people to take real guns as seriously as those pantomimed with fingers, we might be getting somewhere.

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Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Destroyed $5 Million Worth of Assault Weapons After Storewide Ban

The debate over gun control has reached a fever pitch in recent years, but it also feels like not much has been accomplished. You can point the finger in any direction you want to, but it’s a combination of many factors: politicians, big business, the NRA, shareholders, etc.

And as mass shootings continue to plague our country, Americans from all backgrounds grow more and more frustrated at the lack of action on gun legislation.

One CEO of a major company has decided to take a major step to prove that he and his company value human life over profits. Even though it cost his business an estimated $250 million, Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack permanently removed all assault-style rifles from 729 stores in 47 states in the U.S. in February 2018 after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

In addition to that bold move, Ed Stack also recently announced that his company actually destroyed $5 million worth of assault weapons last year after it stopped selling them in stores.

Stack said he had the option to send the weapons back to the manufacturer for an 80%-85% refund or Dick’s could have tried to liquidate their inventory quickly through discounts. Stack recalled, “We’re in this meeting and I said, ‘We can’t do that.’ We think these guns should be outlawed. We think that the ban that was in place between 1994 and 2004 should be reinstated.”

Stack said he knew the weapons would end up out on the street if he chose either of those options, so they decided to destroy all the guns. Many people praised Stack’s decision but of course there was blowback from firearms manufacturers and NRA supporters.

Bravo, Mr. Stack. Let’s see if other CEOs and politicians will follow his lead.

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A Navy SEAL Trains Dogs to Run and Attack School Shooters

No doubt about it: anxiety is running high in schools across the U.S. And that goes for students, teachers, and parents.

Many conversations center around prevention, gun laws and protection. What will it take to make sure another shooting, like the ones at Highlands Ranch STEM or Stoneman Douglas High School, never happens again?

While legislators and the voting public debate the issue, a Navy SEAL offers a solution that may mitigate loss of life and number of injured: specially trained dogs.

When Joshua Morten returned home from five tours overseas, his thoughts turned from the violence he witnessed on the battleground to what he heard was happening in schools. So he decided to do something about it; he’s using his skills at K-9 handling to train dogs to run after attackers and take them down.

Morton told NBC News, “I did not expect to see what I saw overseas, to see it in schools. But, unfortunately, it’s happening. I’ve been trying to find this solution for a very long time.”

After training dogs to search for drugs and explosives using what he calls the Morton Method, he set about teaching them to find shooters.

The process starts with finding trainable dogs that can run toward the danger while avoiding running children. He uses a partner who fires blank rounds from a semi-automatic rifle. Then, Morton guides the dog towards the noise.

This training is critical because he doesn’t want the dogs loose in a dangerous situation trying to locate the intruder at random. Instead, the dogs use all their senses to find the target.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Morton uses his friends to act as fleeing students and tries to create the scenario in a realistic manner as possible. The dog’s only objective is to aggressively attack and take down the shooter.

After the exercises are over and the protective padding comes off the “shooter,” it’s all smiles and wagging. Nothing personal.

“They’re trained to deal with that specific situation,” Morton says.

Those who have seen one of Morton’s dogs in action are impressed with the dog’s ability and focus. The dogs are clearly capable of bringing down the shooter in a matter of seconds.

Others strongly disapprove of Morton’s solution and took to Twitter with their concerns.

Others wondered if the solution was practical given that finding and training enough dogs would be difficult and expensive.

Then, there is the question of ethics. Is it right to send a dog into a shooting scenario where it runs the real and likely risk of getting injured or killed?

But the public’s skepticism does not seem to bother Morton. He, along with some of the school administrators he’s worked with, are convinced these dogs can help. He’s even breeding them so he can work with them as soon as they are old enough. Without fear and with specialized, formal training, Morton’s dogs will be at the ready the next time a former student or enraged stranger decides to take out their frustrations on our children.

Terrifyingly, they’ll be put to work soon.

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Therapy Dogs for the Survivors of the Parkland School Shooting Get Their Own Yearbook Page

It’s graduation season all across the country, and students everywhere are saying their goodbyes for the summer (or longer, if they’re graduating seniors) and of course, getting their yearbooks signed.

Unfortunately for the students of  Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the festivities are still clouded by the looming shadow of the tragic shooting that happened in February 2018, claiming the lives of 17 students and teachers. Staff and students are still dealing with the trauma of that day, a burden they will likely carry with them for years (if not the rest of their lives).

In an attempt to help its community cope with that trauma, Stoneman Douglas High School enlisted the help of 14 therapy dogs, and this year the helpful animals got their own yearbook page.

The yearbook’s editor-in-chief, Caitlynn Tibbetts, said:

“It’s a balancing act. After the shooting we wanted that yearbook to be perfect and had to cover as much as possible. This year, we wanted to give proper representation of our school and who we are now without giving so much focus to what happened to us in the past. The therapy dogs are the one thing from last year that is permanent and positive.”

The dogs attend classes with students and hang out in the courtyard outside the cafeteria as students go to and from lunch, so the students can stop for a quick pet.

Teacher and yearbook adviser Sarah Lerner was thrilled with the addition of therapy jobs to the Stoneman Douglas High School campus. Lerner said, “There’s nothing a dog can’t fix. I’ll be teaching and in comes a dog and these big 18-year-old adults all the sudden become mushy 5-year-old kids and it’s been such a comfort for us.”

Lerner had the idea to include the 14 therapy dogs in the school’s yearbook: “We sat them up on chairs, they were smiling for the camera. It was the greatest day of my life.”

A few of the pooches even ended up going to the prom.

A great, uplifting story that was born out of a tragic day that these students and staff will never forget.

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The Latest in the Fight Against School Shooters? Trained Dogs

Given the lack of action we’ve seen in the face of school shootings becoming an epidemic in our country, educators have been forced to get creative and come up with their own solutions to keep our children safe. There’s ALICE training, Run Hide Fight, and even an extremely controversial idea of arming teachers. Amongst all these ideas, nothing seems to have really taken hold.

Maybe keeping trained attack dogs in schools – not exactly a new idea, but one that seems to be gaining traction – will be different.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Real Deal Dog Training in Norco, CA, and Active Shooter K9 in Chariton, IA, are two of the companies working to train dogs.

James Greco, the head trainer for Long Island K-9, told the New York Times that “the best trained dogs have an accuracy rate of 85 to 90 percent. This sniffing ability means K-9s could help detect the tens of thousands of guns that are brought to school by students across the country each year.”

To be clear, the idea is that having trained dogs in schools could help prevent a shooting before it starts because the dogs will (hopefully) be able sniff out guns and ammo on students. It is not so much that the dogs will be able to stop a shooter who is already on the loose (although, maybe it could happen that way).

If they are successful, these dogs could mean the difference between happily boring, repetitive days at school and the nightmare that too many American kids have already experienced first-hand in recent years. At the very least, taking this step, in addition to others, could help parents and educators feel as if they’re doing something useful to prevent the loss of their children.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

In this day, when so much is so scary and uncertain, simply feeling less impotent is worth a lot.

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Poster of a Lockdown Song in a Kindergarten Classroom Is Heartbreakingly Sad

It’s almost impossible for people over the age of 40 to imagine this happening in their schools when they were growing up. But, sadly, school shootings are such a common phenomenon in American schools so kids have to learn how to stay in place should a shooting take place. A mother named Georgy Cohen shared this poster from a kindergarten class.

Photo Credit: Twitter,radiofreegeorgy

The lyrics to the song read:

Lockdown. Lockdown.

Lock the door.

Shut the lights off.

Say no more.

Go behind the desk and hide.

Wait until it’s safe inside.

Lockdown. Lockdown.

It’s all done.

Now it’s time to have some fun!

Cohen’s tweet went viral and other Twitter users weighed in on the topic.

Photo Credit: Twitter,mbloomstein

Photo Credit: Twitter,EuphoricEuler

Photo Credit: Twitter,TiaX_line

Cohen added that her child had already been taught lockdown drills in pre-kindergarten classes.

Photo Credit: Twitter,radiofreegeorgy

Cohen further added that Americans should call their congressional representatives to advocate for gun reform.

Photo Credit: Twitter,radiofreegeorgy

h/t: Mashable

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