The Last School Shooting.
On kids who might kill and the parents who love them. And lost them.
Last week I was in Mexico City with the family and wrote a bit about traveling with special needs kids.
I had originally planned to write a side issue story after the latest school shooting in Georgia, and I brought all my research with me, but of course, being away and in CDMX inspired me in another direction. So, as I sat down this week to continue the piece I started, I realized how already, a few weeks out, how much the shooting at Appalachee High School had paled inside my thoughts.
In little more than a week, I had metabolized the horror and passed it through my system. Quite easily actually.
Oh, who am I kidding? I barely looked at the news the day of the shooting. I had one ear out for the dead: one student, two, then the adults. I felt a pang of sadness, wondered if it might change the discussions happening in the election. Would we finally talk about gun control? I briefly watched the pain rise up and re-live itself on social media, many were parents who lost kids in other school shootings or survivors themselves. Every school shooting must feel like a forced extension of their grief. David and I shared a short acknowledgement of the incident over morning caffeine.
Okay. They arrested the shooter. It’s over.
Jesus, he was 14.
Jesus, his parents gave him guns.
Jesus, he had been “not well” for awhile.
People calling for retribution. Someone must be punished. The internet rages.
Dad arrested. The Internet rejoices.
Thoughts and prayers.
And that was it.
There was no need to look at the news any further. I knew what I’d see on the screen: Parents panicking in parking lots, aerial helicopter shots of ambulances and medic bays set up on the grass of a sprawling suburban school, teens running, teachers talking about how they hid their kids and got them out safely, the audio of 911 calls playing over and over, kids calling their families from inside the school, local news anchors and local police, on site trying to make sense of chaos.
Nothing changes. Everything changes.
Remember when Columbine was gripping?
We really had never seen anything like it. We watched the TV for days, weeks, following its aftermath. It wasn’t the first school shooting but it was the most important. It taught us a lot about ourselves, our country and what did and didn’t matter to people. But this one in Georgia? Just another day.
Most of us play the numbers game anyway.
Statistically, it probably won’t be our school, our kids, our community. The chance of being involved in any kind of public mass shooting is about 10 million to 1, according to James Alan Fox, criminologist at Northeastern University, who has been tracking these incidents over decades. He says it’s about the same chance as being killed by lightning or being in an earthquake.
Obviously local news in Georgia has dispatches daily. Those communities around Apalachee High School will feel the tremors of this shooting and these deaths for years to come. In David Cullen’s penetrating and brilliant book, Columbine - a writing masterclass on how to tell the story about a massive violent event and the necessary intimate portraits of the people involved - you see how Columbine the town, struggled, fractured and polarized after the shooting, how it is marked by this event. Stll. And across generations.
And so that scarring, too, is happening across the country in Uvalde, Newtown, Parkland, Buffalo, Oxford Township and on and on… Even when we are not thinking of them, or find ourselves near these experiences, they stay on us. Like stink from being in a garbage pit for too long. Teachers think about it when they buy furniture for their classrooms. Heavy furniture small bodies can hide behind. Adminstrators lament having too many windows in their classrooms. Kids, still babies really, perform their active shooter drills perfectly. Are they anxious when they are pretend-hiding in the closet?
Or are the kids as numb as we are?
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Children who might kill + the parents who love them.
There is another group of people who get triggered and riled up whenever there is a new school shooting. These are the parents of already troubled, aggressive children. They wonder if their kid, who threateed to shoot up their school, who rage and threaten to burn down people’s houses, are the next school shooters in their house?
This chat popped up the day of the Georgia school shooting:
Some of the these kids are their parent’s biological children, some have been adopted. These families are your neighbors, your acquaintances, work friends. The kids are mostly boys, but girls can be impacted, too. The parents often keep the details of their day-to-day family life quiet, because they have learned that people blame them for their child’s problems. Their families are marked with chaos, fear and often, a lack of support and understanding.
A couple of the parents responses:
But are these troubled kids actually in danger of becoming school shooters?
To examine how complex this gets, I want to include an interaction David Cullen had with a 14 -year-old Long Island student, who had been expelled from school for saying he would shoot up his school and slit a girl’s throat.
Cullen writes in a piece for the Guardian:
He said he was a fourteen-year-old boy with autism and ADHD, who recently got expelled from his middle school on Long Island. “I wrote that I was going to shoot every one in school and I also wrote that I was going to slit this girls throat if she talked to me,” he wrote. “I know it was stupid but I get so angry because I get lonely, and annoyed at people for leaving me alone. But I don’t get bullied. It’s just I felt left out.”
Cullen adds this: “So many versions of reality there. His principal and the local cops added another: they told me he was a troubled kid with a rough home life and extreme boundary issues – but a great heart. He was desperate for affection and had no clue how to express it.”
Backing this up, the student who killed four students in a Michigan High school was considered a “feral child, deeply neglected by his parents during crucial years and mentally ill.” He was in a psychotic state when he shot up the school.
The Michigan shooters’ psychologist believes he can be rehabilitated.
As a parent of a child who has experienced psychosis, I know that what people can do in that altered state is not necessarily even close to how they would behave normally? How responsible is the child? Should they be incarcerated? For how long? What are our expectations for the parents of struggling kids?
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So, how can we tell who is at risk for a school shooting? And what should we do?
David Cullen has thoughts about how school shootings come together. It is not the bullied kid seeking revenge against the cool jocks myth that the media has touted in the past.
In fact, Cullen sees the media as an important spoke in the wheel of how these shootings happen. We are complicit.
The media and their reporting of The Trench Coat Mafia at Columbine, made Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris seem like cool mythical creatures who, as the underdogs, sought equity any way they could get it. Other teens envisioned them as heroes, winning and reaping justice for killing off the baddies. Groups formed, like The True Crime Community, an online group of kids who followed school shootings and idolized Dylan and Eric. Cullen engaged with them frequently and many sought him out.
Adam Lanza, for example, was obsessed with Eric and Dylan. He aspired to be them. Then, when he got his weapons and his plan together, he murdered his mom - with the rifle and assault weapons she purchased - and then, 26 elementary school kids and 6 teachers in Newtown, Conneticut. That obsession with rampage is critical.
By contrast, the kids described in the parenting group are troubled in many ways, and absolutelu capable of violence and anti-social actions, but probably too vocal about their threats and too impuslve to plan a complicated spree. They are the kids who will scream it to get your reaction, maybe commit and impulsive crimes, but probably have no intention, no real way, to go through with a rampage.
And sometimes the words are just words: I remember my son Raffi (13) once screaming at me when he was angry: ‘I’m going to burn this house down!” I laughed it off and said: “Really dude?” He couldn’t even keep a straight face. “You know I would never, mom. I’m just mad!”
And it’s true, I did know.
School shooters come from all economic, social and, ethnic backgrounds. 80% though are white. They are urban, suburban and rural. Affluent, middle class and poor. Loved or neglected at home. Most shooters come from two parent homes. Many have no previous history of aggression or give warning that something is going on. They are good at deception in a way the kids above are not.
The media often portrays these kids as volatile boys who got fed up and “snapped” but Cullen tells us 93% planned their rampages ahead of time. No need to blame violent movies or video games. Cullen says only ¼ watched violent movies like Natural Born Killers and many less were hyper-interested in violence-based video games.
What the shooters seem to have in common, according to Cullen, is that 98% shared a kind of setback or failure. This could be the loss of a girlfriend, failing a test, not making a team, losing a friend, etc. Normally kids recover from loss and go on to live a life full of failure and success like the rest of us. But something about the set back prompts a kind of anger that is set in motion.
But every teen has set-backs, break-ups, fights with friends, bad grades….
How can we tell what’s really going on?
Signs, compiled by the FBI, that should be taken seriously:
Advance confessions:
81% of shooters have confided what they want to do, to someone. Vague threats - I’m gonna shoot up the school! - are not necessarily confessions, such as with the kids mentioned above. These shooters have detailed and specific plans. They have fantasized, planned and sketched out the entire process.
This is one of the reasons I always ask parents of kids with issues to look beyond the “I’m going to kill you!” threats. Sometimes kids say dumb shit to get your attention, particularly kids with trauma or mental illness. They want to create chaos and get your reaction. They might have needs that aren’t getting met. Looking at what kids are really trying to convey is on us as parents and can be challenging if we haven’t parented that way before. But school shooters are planners. They have specifics. They take their time. They are not impuslve the way the kids in these posts are.
“The danger skyrockets,” Cullen writes in Columbine, “when threats are direct and specific, identify a motive, and indicate work performed to carry it out.”
Conversation Leakage:
Leakage is Cullen’s word for sentiments that might leak out in conversations and interactions with the child. This includes: “a preoccupation with death, destruction and violence.”
Cullen says not to freak out over a single drawing or story, but to let that one drawing wake you up to what else might be going on. Normal teen boys love the dark shit, so be thoughtful, don’t panic, but keep monitoring. The key, Cullen says, is to look for repetition of dark themes, brutality, torture, an always unrepentent hero in their stories, that gets magnified into an obsession.
Look for Psychopaths and Depressives:
Psychopathy:
Identifying a psychopath is difficult by design because putting on a good front, manipulating, being deceptive and charming is the mark of psychopathy. (If you haven’t read it, Sociopath: A Memoir, I recommend. It is disappointing as a piece of writing, but can be inciteful about psycopathy and the struggle it presents in humans, from the persepctive of an actual, diagnosed psycopath.)
At Columbine, Eric Harris was the psychopath of the duo. He was able to fool his therapist and his parents, even though he had been tangled up in the law. He presented well, was chatty and amiable, very smart, a sophisticated reader, and acted accountable and emotional when caught doing wrong. Those charms covered his narcissism, alienation, problems with relationships, dehumanization of others and his overriding sense of superiority and powerfulness.
It makes sense that Eric Harris’s parents would not be able to understand how their kid came to shoot up a school. Eric was stealth in his secrecy and deception. Should they be held responsible?
Depression:
On the other hand, Dylan Klebold was severely depressed. He didn’t plan much of the shooting at all, or kill a lot of people inside the school. He was a follower of Eric’s charisma and execution of the plot.
What he really wanted was to die, to be killed by cop. For Dylan this was suicide, a final way to go out, with a loud message, and an end to the pain he experienced. The FBI believes that nearly 100% of shooters are looking to die.
What truly complicates this is the FBI added, in a final caution: a kid matching most of these warning signs was more likely to be suffering from depression or mental illness, and needs help, not incarceration.
And this lead us to the biggest questions: What help is out there for our kids and for the families that are struggling? What should you do if you think your child is planning a rampage? Or is experiencing psychosis? Or is severely depressed?
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What can we do to stop school shootings?
Cullen’s advice is concrete and specific. He advocates for the following:
Intermittent screening for depression in high school.
Cullen believes that schools should screen students for teenage depression, by giving them something like a single-page form with 10 questions once or twice a year. The FBI concurs that most shooters are severly depressed, disconnected from the people and things that could assist them, and deeply suicidal.
An increase in mental health services paid for by insurance (as recently introduced by the Biden/Harris administration) could help families access more mental health support through their insurance providers, and more easily identify and support kids before they act out or devolve into psychosis.
No Glory for the Shooters:
The media has to not glorify the shooters and make them look like heroes. This has started happening. We know very little about the Parkland shooter - I can’t even recall his name off hand, and this is by design - we know more now, then we did during Columbine. We need to keep it up.
Effective + Substantial Gun Control.
We are not coming for your guns, the way folks are trying to come for women’s bodies and healthcare. Have your guns. But please be open to laws that prevent them from getting into the hands of people who are unwell. This should be a no-brainer.
I am including here banning or putting limitations on the ownership of military-style firearms that can switch between fully automatic and semi-automatic fire and/or use detachable magazines. (I have learned with the pro-gun crowd, they will try to drag you off track with definitions of the term “assault-style weapons” so I try not to use that term.)
Don’t think gun control can change anything?
My husband, David, who is Australian, reminds me often that in 1996, 35 people were killed during The Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania. The gunman killed 35 people and wounded 23 others. Immediately Australia - which had a strong gun culture and ample oppostion to gun control, but no real gun lobby that could apply pressure to legislators - enacted serious gun control laws. As a result, since 1996 there has been only one mass shooting, and gun homicides have decreased by 60%
Should we punish parents for their child’s shooting rampages?
After the Georgia shooting when folks on the the internet were calling for the parents to be punished. I had a knee jerk reaction to a friend demanding punishment for the parents.
A part of me, was like, why does someone have to pay? Why must we seek retribution? I know our brains are driven to want revenge. We are so animalistic and tribal. How do we know the parents are at fault? What if your kid is sick and you have tried everything? Or what if you are a truck driver, and not a neurospychologist, and you miss the signs that your kid is in crisis?
In the Georgia case, it is alarming that the parents gave their troubled child a weapon. Because of it, the dad of the Georgia shooter will face four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children.
But how can we expect dad to make the right decision about his son and his guns when they live in a state with one of the most lax gun laws in the country?
Georgia has no minimum age for kids under 18 to possess a rifle or a shot gun. Kids can also carry firearms while on their property with their parents' consent. Parents can provide a handgun to a juvenile and its only a felony if the parents knew the child wanted to commit a felony wih the gun. Georgia law also doesn’t regulate or prohibit the sale or possession of semi-automatic firearms that are designed for rapid fire, high muzzle velocity and/or combat use.
I mean, Georgia gun laws are so wispy, this dad’s lawyer could probably find 100 loopholes to get this case thrown out, despite the cries of outrage. If our governments aren’t willing to protect kids in schools, how are parents supposed to do it alone? Isn’t this a giant mixed message?
There are no pat answers here, but we do have to start getting serious about actively seeking out information about our kid’s mental health issues, not simply taking their word for how they are and letting them slam the door and obsess in their rooms. This needs to happen at home, with continued monitoring at school. It means checking i and keeping guns of war out of their hands and demanding that our legislators make common sense gun laws happen. The hardest part - It means closing up those cracks our babies fall through in our schools and communities. It’s a big ask from everyone.
But it’s now our work.
I often think of Sue Klebold who not only had to endure the hatred and derision of her community, but all the what ifs around how she could’ve saved her depressed son and all the blood spilled and lives lost because she failed to do it. If only she had known more and known how to.
If only all of us had known. But we do now.
I’d like to leave you with one last thought from Cullen’s Columbine. He writes:
The planning phase begins months before. But the ideation can be viewed in little boys as early as five and six. We all have that time to help them.
Time we keep squandering.
Thank you, as always, for reading. xo Kim
I always learn so much from one of your posts, and I always appreciate it!