FLASH TO APRIL 2006
5 Face Charges In
Columbine-Style Plot RIVERTON, Kan., April 21, 2006
(CBS/AP) The five teenage boys accused of plotting a
Columbine-style massacre at their Kansas high school are still being
held by police. Authorities say the boys fully intended to go on a
shooting spree at their high school but were stopped after one of
them discussed the plot on a Web site.
The boys, ranging in age from 16 to 18, were arrested Thursday, the
anniversary of the Columbine massacre, just hours before they
planned to shoot fellow students and school employees, authorities
said. Even as the numbers of such Columbine-style shootings increase, many
parents are still not ready to believe that it could happen in their
own school districts.
The four who were younger than 18 were being held Thursday at a
juvenile detention center in Girard. The 18-year-old was in the
Cherokee County Jail. No decision has been made on whether to charge
the four juveniles as adults, Kline said. The teens planned to wear black trench coats and disable the
school's camera system before starting the attack between noon and 1
p.m. Thursday, Norman said. Sheriff's deputies found guns,
ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one suspect
and documents about firearms and references to Armageddon in two
suspects' school lockers. Apparently, they had been plotting since the beginning of the school
year. Norman said school officials began investigating Tuesday after
learning a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com.
"The message, it was brief, but it stated that there was going to be
a shooting at the Riverton school and that people should wear
bulletproof vests and flak jackets," Norman said. The message also discussed the significance of April 20 as Adolf
Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High
School attack in Colorado, in which two students wearing trench
coats killed 13 people before committing suicide.
But Riverton school district Superintendent David Walters said the
significance of the threat did not become clear until Wednesday
night, after a woman in North Carolina who had chatted with one of
the suspects on Myspace.com notified authorities there would be
about a dozen potential victims, at least one of them a staff
member.
Back in January, one of the teen suspects had talked about
Columbine, but "we thought he was joking because he was always
joking about stuff like that," Ferneau told ABC's "Good Morning
America" on Friday.
Ferneau and otherstudents described the teen as a class clown who
was often in trouble with the teachers.
He was an "oddball," student Trenton Berry told ABC. "Everybody
picked on him and everything."
Norman also mentioned bullying and said investigators had learned
the suspects liked violent video games.
Four of the suspects were arrested at their homes Thursday; the
fifth was taken into custody at the school.
Flash to Alaska days later...
Police arrest 6 boys in plot
NORTH POLE: School was target for alleged murder conspiracy.

By
TATABOLINE BRANT Anchorage Daily News

(Published: April 23, 2006)
Six seventh-grade boys, whom police said may have been out for
revenge because they were being picked on, were in custody Saturday
in North Pole on suspicion they plotted to bring guns and knives to
school and kill teachers and students they didn't like.
The boys -- not named because of their ages -- were taken to a
Fairbanks Youth Facility and face first-degree conspiracy to commit
murder charges, authorities said.
The arrests culminate a tense, weeklong investigation that
involved a number of police agencies and that gripped the small town
of 1,600. Events during the week stirred numerous parents to keep
their children home from North Pole Middle School, school officials
said.
"I think all of us were horrified that anybody would be thinking
to kill someone else," said the town's mayor, Jeff Jacobson, who
also teaches sixth-graders at the school. "This is a wake-up call
for all of us that we need to keep the channels of communication
open with our kids."
The investigation began with a tip to North Pole police Monday
from a concerned parent, who had heard about the murder plot from a
child. Police immediately notified school officials and by that
evening, 12 students were suspended.
The plot was to be executed the following day, according to a
statement released Saturday by North Pole Police Chief Paul Lindhag.
Police speculated the boys were driven by motives ranging from
being picked on by other students to disliking staff and students,
according to the statement.
"This plan included the disabling of the school's telephone and
power system, setting an allotted amount of time to remain in the
school to kill their victims, and their escape route from the school
and North Pole area," the statement said.
He said news of the murder plot has been understandably unnerving
for parents, students and faculty. In order to further calm fears, a
police officer will be stationed at the middle school for the
remaining four weeks of classes, Manzie said. An extra safety
monitor has also been added to the school.
The North Pole arrests came just days after five Kansas teenagers
suspected of planning a shooting rampage at their high school were
arrested Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the Columbine
massacre. But North Pole police said their investigation revealed no
connection to any other school tragedy.
In the late 1990s, it seemed like an
epidemic had hit American schools: Children were
acquiring guns and bombs, and then going to
school to kill teachers and classmates. Various
cultural influences were targeted for blame,
such as Stephen King’s novel, Rage, a
film, The Basketball Diaries, and the
Pearl Jam video, “Jeremy.” Violent videogames
also entered the discussions, as did the
influences of cults like Satanism. Yet a look
back reveals some of the earlier incidents as
well. The following is a timeline of school
violence that grabbed national attention: |
Katherine
Ramsland
www.katherineramsland.com
Visit her site and read her book |
|
Child prostitution and child sex rings exist in all
countries and in all the major cities in North America. Even in some
smaller communities there can be highly active and organized child sex
rings.
www.irvingstudios.com/child_abuse_survivor_monument/SexRings.htm
===========================================
Today: April 24, 2006 at 20:31:40
PDT
Wash. Student Arrested in
Shooting Plot
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUYALLUP, Wash. (AP) - A
16-year-old student accused of plotting to shoot people at Rogers High
School, then kill himself "to finally go out in a blaze of hatred and
fury" was charged Monday with first-degree attempted assault, Pierce
County authorities said.
Another student passed along
word of the alleged plot to the school's ROTC commander, court papers
said.
Investigators searched Brian
Michael Evans' home Sunday and found two rifles, two handguns,
ammunition, a homemade bomb and a CD copy of "The Anarchist Cookbook,"
which includes directions to make explosives, sheriff's spokesman Ed
Troyer said.
Sheriff's investigators
believe the boy didn't plan to target specific people.
The boy wanted people to
"feel his pain, and he wanted to be hated, not having earned respect in
the past," Troyer said.
Charging papers said the teen shared specifics of his plan with
deputies when they arrived at his house, including plans to use bolt
cutters to cut the locks on his stepfather's gun cabinet, which
contained two rifles and two handguns.
The boy told authorities he planned to take a .22 caliber rifle and a
handgun with 15 rounds because it was easy to conceal. He said he
planned to "take people out and save the last round for himself," - only
taking one magazine "because that is all that he needed," an affidavit
filed with charging papers said.
April 24...also report from Pearl, Mississippi that a school
attack was abborted...back in 1997 Luke Woodham, a student went on a
killin g rampage that saw his mother and tow school girls murdered.
Teen Killed In Shooting At Venice High School
POSTED: 4:01 pm PDT June 5, 2006
UPDATED: 5:59 pm PDT June 5, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- Authorities
are searching for two people in connection with a deadly shooting
Monday afternoon in a high school parking lot. A teenage boy was
shot and killed in the Venice High School parking lot. The shooting
occurred at 3:10 p.m., police said. The boy was taken to the hospital in critical condition and later
was pronounced dead, said Officer Mike Lopez, a police spokesman. The victim was a 17-year-old junior at Venice High but no other
details were available, said Susan Cox, a spokeswoman for the Los
Angeles Unified School District. |
Teen Shot by Police Brain Dead
By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer
Jan 2006
The
15-year-old boy shot by police while brandishing a
pellet gun in a middle school bathroom was clinically
brain
dead Saturday
but was being kept alive to harvest his organs, his
family's attorney said. Christopher Penley was
expected to
die Saturday night, said family attorney Mark Nation.
"His organs
are in the process of being harvested," Nation told
reporters outside a hospital. Earlier, Kelly
Swofford,
a family
spokeswoman and neighbor of the boy's parents Ralph and
Donna Penley, said the boy had died and that
the family
was "devastated."
Penley, of
Winter Springs, was accused of pulling the pellet gun in
a classroom Friday and pointing it at other students
before
forcing one into a closet, then leading deputies and
SWAT team members on a chase that ended in a school
bathroom.
When he
raised the gun at a deputy, a SWAT team member shot him,
authorities said.
Officers who
had responded to the 1,100-student school in suburban
Orlando believed the gun was a Beretta 9mm, and
didn't learn
until after the shooting that it was a pellet gun.
Police had
said Friday night that the boy was on "advanced life
support." The hospital refused to release any
information Saturday.
"Everybody in
the whole neighborhood is really upset," Paul Cavallini,
who lives across the street from the Penleys, said
Saturday.
"He was a quiet kid — polite and everything. He was just
a normal teenager." However, friends and
investigators say
he was also
bullied and emotionally distraught, and went to school
that day expecting to die.
With Americans spending an average of 40 percent of their free time
watching television, the
negative effects of excessive TV-watching are taking a toll:
· More than 2,000 studies link TV-violence to real life violence.
· Twelve major medical studies link excessive TV watching
to increased obesity.
· By the age of 65, the average American spends nine full
years watching TV.
"We have the most sedentary generation of young people in American history…reducing
the
amount of television our children watch is one way to encourage more
healthful activity," U.S.
Surgeon General David Satcher said.
"When kids are parked in front of the TV, they're not engaged in the
activities essential to the
formation of healthy bones and muscles," American Public Health Association
executive
director Mohammad Akhter said.
According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches three
hours and 46 minutes
of TV every day, that's more than 52 days of nonstop TV watching per
year.
Unfortunately, some negative statistics show Americans rent more videos
on a daily basis, six
million, than the number of books checked out of public libraries,
only three million.
The average American child, ages two to 11, watches television 1,197
minutes (almost 20
hours) per week, whereas the same children only spend 38 minutes per
week in meaningful
conversation with their parents.
Other discouraging statistics compiled by TV-Free America include:
· Only one in 12 parents require their children to do homework
before watching television.
· 25: percentage of teens who can name the city where the U.S.
Constitution was written: Philadelphia.
· 75: percentage of teens who know where to find the zip code
90210: Beverly Hills.
· 200,000: number of violent acts the average American child
sees on TV by age 18.
· 16,000: number of murders witnessed by children on television
by age 18.
· 10: percentage of youth violence directly attributable to
TV viewing.
· 73: percentage of Americans who believe TV and movies are
responsible for juvenile crime.
· 80: percentage of Hollywood executives who think there is
a link between TV violence and real-life violence.
· 91: percentage of children polled who said they felt upset
or scared by violence on television.
· 721: percent increase in network news coverage of homicides
between 1993 and 1996.
· 41: percent increase in number of violent scenes per hour
on 10 major channels from 1992 to 1994.
· 12: number of medical studies since 1985 linking excessive
television-watching to increasing rates of obesity.
· 4: percentage of American children, ages six to 11, seriously
overweight in 1963.
· 14: percentage of American children, ages six to 11, seriously
overweight in 1993.
· 202: number of junk food ads aired during four hours of Saturday
morning programming.
TV-Free America is a national, nonprofit, nonpartisan
organization encouraging Americans to
voluntarily and dramatically reduce the amount of
television they watch in order to promote
richer, healthier and more connected lives, families
and communities.
According to the
Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the years between 1985 and 1995 saw
a
249
percent increase in gun-related murders
committed
by juveniles. (By the year 1992, when
murder
became the second leading cause of death among males 15-24 in the
United States,
three-quarters of the killings
already involved guns.) Indeed, for black and white older adolescents,
firearm murders are the
most rapidly increasing cause of death.
After review of hundreds
of research findings,
three major national
studies have concluded
that heavy exposure to
televised violence
is one of the significant
causes of violence
in society:
The
Surgeon Generals Commission Report (1972).
The National Institute of Mental Health Ten-Year Follow-up (1982).
The report of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on
Television in Society (1992).
Causes of Death
in Schools
Of all the deaths that have
occurred in American schools since 1992, 77% have resulted from shootings
The number of deaths by
various causes in public shootings, 1992 through April 1999, including
deaths
from the Littleton, Colo.,
massacre in April 1999. Reported by The National School Safety Center.
“In some areas of the country, it is now
more likely for a black male between 15 and
25 to die from homicide than it was for
a United States soldier to be killed on a tour
of duty in Vietnam. ”
New
York Times, December 7, 1990.
Shooting 193
Stabbing 35
Beating 11
Asphyxiation 4
Hanging 1
Jumping 1
Unknown 3
Suicides...add
this to the fire
Guns used in suicides have a very high
"completion rate" -- 78% of such attempts
are fatal.[Source: Annest JL,
Mercy JA, Gibson DR, Ryan GW. National estimates
of nonfatal firearmrelated injuries:
beyond the tip of the iceberg. JAMA 1995
This is one of the saddest and horrible
affects/effects that our ignoring our children and
youth all these years has befallen upon
our culture...when a youth takes their own life,
humanity is that much less human.
A suicide
is a death that is caused by a self-inflicted, intentional action or behavior.
Across all
age groups in the United States, firearms
consistently account for nearly 60% of all suicide
deaths. It is the method of CHOICE.
Each year in the United States, thousands
of teenagers commit suicide.
Again,
over the
past two decades
automobile accidents kill most of the nations adolecents. It has
been re-
ported that over
a million kids are in auto wrecks in a years time. I honestly believe
that
tens of thousands
of the kids killed and badly hurt in automobile accidents are suicide
attempts.
Consciously and on the robotic unconscious level...there are many forms
of
behavior that suicide
can hide.
Suicide
is the 3rd leading cause of death for 15-to-24 years olds, &
the 6th leading
cause of death for 5-to-14
years olds. This fact alone brings tears to my already red eyes.
Between
1950 and 1992, suicide
among adolescents and young adults has nearly tripled, according to the
CDC.
From 1980 to 1992, suicide
among American teens 15-to-19 years old rose 28.3%. During that same
period the suicide rate
for children 10-to-14 has grown 120%. These statistics are scary, but the
worst
part of it is what these
numbers don't tell. The numbers we have are based on SUCCESSFUL suicides.
The scary thought is that
only 7 to 10 percent of attempters die by suicide. That means that to get
an
adequate picture of who
tries to commit suicide.....you have to multiply the numbers by at least
10.
That means that there are
more people that attempt suicide between the ages of 5-to-14 then are killed
by the top ten causes of
death. To put it simply....it is an epidemic......We NEED to start paying
attention
to the problems that are
causing our youth to behave in such sad sad ways. This is what I
know for sure.
So...while I am working on this page
after the Columbine tragedy this yet another
tragedy comes to my heart reading this
in USA TODAY. My fellow Americans...this
is happening in the United States of
America...not China or Russia. We know what
is going on and if you look back just
years ago in some of the research below you
see that we have had the stories and
the "research" to know a terrible trend has
begun, and that as a Nation, a culture
and a country we should stop as humans,
congressmen, parents and presidents
and do something to stem the tide...
Murder
tops the causes of death among infants
When
an infant dies of an injury, murder is the most common cause, says the
first large-scale
study
of injury deaths in the first year of life. "We were very surprised
when we first looked at
the
numbers to see this (murder) happening so much in infants," says Mary Overpeck,
a
researcher
at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development...after
murder,
which
accounted for 23% of the deaths, the leading causes were suffocation, 18%;
car
accidents,
15%; fires 9%; drowning, 7%; choking on food, 7%; choking on objects, 6%;
other
unintentional injuries, 11%; and injuries of undetermined intent,
4%.
USA
TODAY 5/5/99
Study results to date show that there
were 173 incidents between 7/1/94
and June 30, 1998. The majority of
these incidents were homicides and
involved the use of firearms. The total
number of events has decreased
steadily since the 1992-1993 school
year. However, the total number of
multiple victim events appears to have
increased. During the past 3 school
years, August 1995 through June 1998,
there were an average of 5 multiple
victims events per year. This is compared
to an average of one multiple
victim event per year in the three
years from August 1992 through July
1995. Thus, while the total number
of events of school associated violent
deaths have decreased, the total number
of multiple-victim events appears
to have increased. Data collection
ended with the completion of the 1997-
1998 academic year.
Over the 5-year period from 1992 to
1996, teachers were victims of 1,581,000
nonfatal crimes at school, including
962,000 thefts and 619,000 violent
crimes (rape or sexual
assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault) (Indicator 9).
This translates into about 316,000
nonfatal crimes per year over this time
period.
CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey
(YRBS), is a school-based survey
designed to produce nationally representative
sample of risk behaviors
among students in grades 9-12.
In 1997, law enforcement
agencies made an estimated 2.8 million
arrests
of persons under the age of 18
The 1997 YRBS reported
that:
8.3% of high school
students carried a weapon (e.g., gun, knife, or club)
during the 30 days
preceding the survey, down from 26.1% in 199
5.9% of high school
students carried a gun during the 30 days preceding
the study. 8.5%
of high school students carried a weapon on school property
during the 30 days
preceding the survey 7.4% of high school students were
threatened or injured
with a weapon on school property during the 12 months
preceding the survey.
Other facts from the 1997 YRBS report
included:
Nationwide, 4% of students
had missed 1 or more days of school during
the 30 days preceding
the survey because they had felt unsafe at school
or when traveling to
or from school.
The prevalence of weapon
carrying on school property on 1 or more of
the 30 days preceding
the survey was 8.5% nationwide. Overall, male
students (12.5%) were
significantly more likely than female students
(3.7%) to have carried
a weapon on school property.
Nationwide, the prevalence
of students who had been threatened or
injured with a weapon
on school property one or more times during the
12 months preceding
the survey was 7.4%. Overall, male students
(10.2%) were significantly
more likely than female students (4%) to have
been threatened or
injured with a weapon on school property.
Nationwide, 14.8% of
students had been in a physical fight on school
property one or more
times during the 12 months preceding the survey.
Overall, male students
(20%) were significantly more likely than female
students (8.6%) to
have been in a physical fight on school property. This
significant difference
was identified for white and Hispanic students and
all grade subgroups.
Approximately one third
(32.9%) of students nationwide had property
(car, clothing, or
books) stolen or deliberately damaged on school
property one or more
times during the 12 months preceding the survey.
Over 108,700 juveniles were in detention,
correctional, or shelter facilities on
February 15, 1995. (Ojjpd)
People
you must realize that this is on one day....
and you can bet
your life on it that if you add numbers like this every day year
after year...you
have
In 1996, one-fifth of all juveniles were
living below the poverty level, 27% above
the 1977 level but 8% below the 1992 level.
(OJJPD) 69.5 million Americans –
or more than one in four – were under
the age of 18 in 1997.
Over 108,700 juveniles were in detention,
correctional, or shelter facilities on
February 15, 1995. the average length
of stay for juveniles released from
custody in 1994 varied by facility type
and custody status ranging from a few
days to several months.
In 1995 courts with juvenile jurisdiction
disposed more than 1.7 million
delinquency
cases.

While the government, churches,
communities, school boards and individual parents worry and wonder at
what can be done.
Now, after ignoring the problem for a few decades... we are seeing the
flash points of a
very pervasive and historic
situation in our Nation and with the youth, who are said to be the future
of the
nation itself.
I ask again where is all
this lottery money going...tax the guns Mr. Heston and give some
of the money the
arms merchants are selling
out of their pursuit to make the all mighty buck...the same guys that are
manufacturing the guns that
our kids are taking to school, shooting each other with, shooting themselves
and their parents with,
the same guns that the gangs are shooting up the streets and neighborhoods
with in
cities across this entire
nation are the same guys that are selling guns to the various countries
that are in
war like Kosovo, the
guns...What reminds me of Gore Vadal's Hollywood?
The gun owners stick up their
hands and say it is not the guns, or our Second Amendment Right that the
forefathers gave us, of
course never imagining that the kids would be blowing the heads off of
their parents,
their peers, teachers and
cops in the street, and corner grocery store clerks away with simi automatic
rifles.
Hey Charlton Moses did you
carry a gun to Denver? The school says it is not our fault we had no idea,
besides we do not have the
funds needed to teach much less control the ills of society that come to
school
each day called students.
Our youth are a mess, and we put more money into football gear than we
do the
counselors to help them.
Irony that it was the jocks that they were after. We need to look
at the sports
win win win thing.
The little boy says with
a quivering lip...trying not to break down and "be like a man"...when he
tells the new
camera how he saw his his
friend Mat laying on the floor in the school library, smoking from the
side where
they had shot him.
Some tough swat team guy breaks down crying saying, "You feel like your
stomach is
grabbing you and your heart
is at your feet...there were bodies laying all over the floor. It
was a mess."
Another Swat team member
on the scene says, "I feel like I am empty living in a fog. When
I saw that first
dead girl laying there I
saw my daughters face in hers."
National Threat Assessment Center
Secret Service Safe School Initiative from their website in Jan of
2006
In 2002, the U.S. Secret Service completed the Safe School
Initiative, a study of school shootings and other school-based attacks
that was conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of
Education. The study examined school shootings in the United States as
far back as 1974, through the end of the school year in 2000, analyzing
a total of 37 incidents involving 41 student attackers. The study
involved extensive review of police records, school records, court
documents, and other source materials, and included interviews with 10
school shooters. The focus of the study was on developing information
about the school shooters's pre-attack behaviors and communications. The
goal was to identify information about a school shooting that may be
identifiable or noticeable before the shooting occurs, to help inform
efforts to prevent school-based attacks.
SEE MORE FROM THEIR WEBSITE...http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac_ssi.shtml |
After review
of hundreds of research findings,
three major national
studies have concluded
that heavy exposure to
televised violence
is one of the significant
causes of violence
in society:
The
Surgeon Generals Commission Report (1972).
The National Institute of Mental Health Ten-Year Follow-up (1982).
The report of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on
Television in Society (1992).
Col. David Grossman ...The
Psychology of Killing talked of simulated murder. How they
use
simulate the cops, swats
teams etc. in these simulators. Your are learning to do it and live
it...
it give you the practice
in this virtual world simulated...These tools are used in the military
and
police departments
to help them overcome the fear to kill. To make killing inour soldiers
a
conditioned response...ding!!!!
There goes the bell again..
The guys that made the
game Mortal Combat says, hey its just a game. Just because the military,
cops and
swat teams use the same
simulated games and many times this game itself has no relativity here.
(Hey guys,
call me late to dinner,
but don't call me stupid.) The guys at Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC,
MTV, Warner Brothers say,
"Hey this stuff don't
affect/effect younger children and youth when they see the mindless repetition
of guns, sex,
violence, drugs over
and over for more than two decades on the boob tube and at the big silver
screen. Hey,
and what about art and my
God given talents says Marlyn Manson...who also says I didn't do it, it
is just art and
rock n' roll man.
The Grunge movement say hey man...we ain't preaching that violent
stuff...what? Oh, this tattoo
of a swastaca on my
neck? Hitler, wasn't he a World War hero? Yes, these
are army boots and military fatigues
I am wearing with my spiked
hair and 10 pounds of chains around my neck... and metal stuck through
my lip, noes,
ear, belly button and places
I won't say right now, cause my parents might be watching TV.
Acting the dumbest of all
was the principal and the superintendent and school officials. I
think Alfred E. Newman
for president, what do you
say boys? Or, maybe Wavey Gravey will run "Nobody" again for president.
And I ask
you guys, did you ever wonder
where all the lottery money is going. Why do I remember something
about schools
and children when the system
ran that game down our collective throats. And how much is the Littleton
school
system spending on administration.
Check out the disparity in the budge for administration and actual programs
that are designed to give
teenagers some help and balance in these kids troubled lives.
Remember this is the 100th
Monkey. And didn't a guy named Pavlov have a dog that liked bells...Rebellion...
Rebell...The swat team said
all the blood and the eire feeling of the bells and the fire alarms going
off in the
building rang of the disaster.
Our school bells ring their toll, while the church bells are silent in
the schools.
ACLU and somebody ran Jesus
and God out years ago. Hey, ask B.F. Skinner about monkey see,
monkey do.
Speaking of monkeys on our
back...I am reminded of the three that had their hands over their eyes,
ears, and
mouth. Well this is
what our kids see us as when they need help or answers to what is real
and what is not.
They are not just monkeying
around, they are holding on to the dear survival of their mind set...for
the world
around them is going ape
raping mad...like some monkey bite in the jungle of Africa where a behavioral
type
virus begins to spread aAids
sets in and babys begin to die from some viral strain in the culture.
Oh, God. Dear God...what
have we done to the youth that is our culture. Sad vulnerable little
boys and they
take on the dark side of
our culture.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
IN THE UNITED STATES
from: www.now.org/The
NationalOrganizationforWomen
MURDER . Every day four women
die in this country as a result of domestic violence, the euphemism for
murders and
assaults by husbands and
boyfriends. That's approximately 1,400 women a year, according to the FBI.
The number of
women who have been murdered
by their intimate partners is greater than the number of soldiers killed
in the Vietnam War.
BATTERING . Although only
572,000 reports of assault by intimates are officially reported to federal
officials each year,
the most conservative estimates
indicate two to four million women of all races and classes are battered
each year. At
least 170,000 of those violent
incidents are serious enough to require hospitalization, emergency room
care or a doctor's
attention.
SEXUAL ASSAULT . Every year
approximately 132,000 women report that they have been victims of rape
or attempted rape,
and more than half of them
knew their attackers. It's estimated that two to six times that many women
are raped, but do not
report it. Every year 1.2
million women are forcibly raped by their current or former male partners,
some more than once.
THE TARGETS . Women are 10
times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate. Young women,
women who are
separated, divorced or single,
low- income women and African-American women are disproportionately victims
of assault and
rape. Domestic violence
rates are five times higher among families below poverty levels, and severe
spouse abuse is twice as
likely to be committed by
unemployed men as by those working full time. Violent attacks on lesbians
and gay men have
become two to three times
more common than they were prior to 1988.
IMPACT ON CHILDREN . Violent
juvenile offenders are four times more likely to have grown up in homes
where they saw
violence. Children who have
witnessed violence at home are also five times more likely to commit or
suffer violence when
they become adults.
"Rap artists aren't rapping
about things they made up. It's not glorifying it. It's just
real life.
It is what it is,"
said
Gabrielle Peluso, director of publicity for Def Jam Records in New York.
According to the latest Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) statistics, juveniles are responsible
for 34% of all pipe bombings
in the nation. Instructions for making pipe bombs are widely available
on the
Internet, at book stores,
at libraries and at gun shows. From 1993 through 1997, there were
3,578 pipe
bombings nation wide, according
to ATF stats. In addition, Juveniles have stolen a total of 780 ds
of high
explosives, such as dynamite,
in the past two years. "The magnitude of this is incomprehensible to me,"
said
Jeff Roehm, an investigator
with the ATF who has 22 years experience. " have two high-school
age daughters.
I woke up a couple times
last night in cold sweats, literally."
I could not help but wonder
why the swat team seemed so reluctant to go in...it is all so hard to imagine
the
dilemma that those trained
men had to go through...but, who is the world is trained for anything like
this...who
could know? Who could
judge? Just because they are trained Swat teams and are trained
cops does not
mean they know how to deal
with a tragedy such as this. You can see that these tough men
will never be the
same. Men that
are trained to kill and be tough and strong, were seen on the news
with tears in their eyes
after the event. They
all seemed to be not so tough up against the situation that existed at
Columbine High in
Colorado that tragic day.
Death as an award to them
Social outcasts
Neo-Natzi Germany
punk, march pits, black, steel and chains. Warner Brothers and
a Matrix of trench coat
crime and gangster type 2000 kid violence...
WASHINGTON--President Clinton
today invited representatives of the entertainment, Internet, and gun industries
to a May 10 White House
summit to debate ways to cut youth violence after the Colorado school massacre.
"As
we have united in
grief, now we should unite in action," Clinton said, cautioning, however,
that "we should
recognize the simple truth
that there is no simple, single answer." Clinton said
he wants to invite to his national
strategy session representatives
from the movie industry and the Internet, government and religious leaders,
those who produce explosives
and weapons, and police force leaders.
The objective is to create
a national grassroots campaign against youth violence on the scale of past
efforts to,
for example, fight drunk
driving. "If citizens, parents, and children alike, working together
in their communities,
can reduce teen pregnancy,
reduce drunk driving, make seat belt use nearly universal--then working
together we
can protect our children,"
Clinton said. is a natural place where many of them will break. That
treadmill they are
on is running pretty fast.
I am very mad at my culture
for the blood that our children bath in...Colarado and the streets of L.A.
The kids at
Waco and the kids in the
nursery in the Oklahoma building, the children in Kosovo, the kids in the
sweat shops
and factories around the
world working for dimes, the runaway and homeless children and the kids
in the streets
of Rio and New York.
I pray for all the hundreds of thousands of kids who have attempted and
contemplated
suicide. I pray for
the millions that have been and are now locked in adult jails, detention
centers, foster homes,
single parent families.
The news the day of the carnage
at the High School in Colorado went from the blood and guns of that story
to the
blood and buildings burning
in Belgrade after the NATO attacks. Thought then I could probable
flip over to Fox
and see some of their typical
afternoon blow up violence that they program each afternoon for your children...
America is violent and we
are obsessed with violence. We are a wash in violence on TV in the
movies and in
the home. The shocking
stats on the number of homicides of women being caused by their husbands
and lovers,
child abuse a major killer
of children, the top three killers of our youth are auto accidents, suicide
and homicide.
Hitlers's birthday on 4/20...same
month anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, 5th anniversary of the
end of
the Waco tragedy...earlier
school shootings in Jonesboro, Ark, West Pauduca, Ky, Springfield, ore,
Fayetteville,
Tenn., Edinboro, Pa and
Pearl, Miss. Juvenile crime on the rise.
THEY ARE IMMERSED...
IMMERSION-TYPE MEDIA, SUCH AS VIDEO GAMES AND COMPUTER OR
INTERNET GAMES... YOU WIN
BY THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT YOU KILL.
The homes are not safe
The schools are not safe
The streets are not safe
Television filled with violence
News is all violent...if it bleeds it
leads
Movies are full of violence
Video games filled with violence
Music filled with violence
Nearly all of the 200 most popular movies
rented in 1996 and 1997
included the appearance of alcohol,
tobacco or illegal drugs, a
Stanford University researchers found.
And on and on and on...
So media argues...media does
not affect/effect the behavior of our children and youth. Basically
they all say...
hey, ART & Freedom
of expression. Ah..why what they see on TV and in the movies does
not effect them..etc.
etc.etc.etc. I always think
when I hear the entertainment and media folks tell how what people watch
on TV and
at the movies does not affect/effect
children and youth. I can not help but ask...then what is the entire
purpose
of advertising?
So then where did Joe Camel go? Why are they taking down the adds
for alcohol and tobacco.
The same guys that deny
that what kids see on TV has and affect/effect on the childen are the same
guys paying
millions upon millions of
dollars showing advertising on TV to get people to change their behavior
and do what
they want them to do...buy
the advertisted products. THINK ABOUT THIS A SECOND FOLKS...
THE PROBLEM
Thousands of scientific
studies and case studies have shown the powerful influence that the
entertainment media has
on people's cognitive development and behavior, especially children,
teenagers and young people,
who represent the biggest audience. In fact, by the time they are
17-years-old, children
will have spent at least 40,000 hours watching movies, videos and TV
programs, playing video
games, listening to music, and reading popular books and news
stories, but only 11,000
hours in school, 2,000 hours with their parents, and 800 hours in church
if they regularly attend!
That's about 2,353 hours of media consumption per year for the average
child. Of those 2,353
hours each year, our current figures indicate that up to 20 percent of
them,
or about 471 hours, will
feature a solid, strong or very strong moral worldview, and up to 7
percent, or about 165
hours, will feature a solid, strong or very strong redemptive or Christian
worldview.
In 2001, the Surgeon General
of the United States agreed with four top medical groups, the
American Medical Association,
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Psychological Association,
and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as
well as countless psychological
experts, that violence in the mass media is contributing to
increasing violent behavior
among children.1 Not only that, but many scientific studies from
other sources, such as
education professor Diane Levin, author of REMOTE CONTROL
CHILDHOOD? COMBATING
THE HAZARDS OF MEDIA CULTURE, 2 and psychologists like
Dr. Victor Cline, Dr.
Stanley Rachman, and Dr. W. Marshall, 3 have found that viewing sexual
images in the media has
led to increased sexual activity among children and teenagers and
increased deviant behavior,
including rape. Furthermore, a recent Dartmouth Medical School
study of New England
middle-school students, reported by the National Cancer Institute, found
that viewing drug use
in movies and TV programs leads
THE SOLUTION - MEDIA
WISDOM
By Dr. Ted Baehr and
Dr. Tom Snyder
Special to ASSIST News
Service
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll
taken Wednesday, the day after the Colorado high school shootings, shows
79% believe the incident
indicates "there is something seriously wrong in the country today."
Only 17% called
it "an isolated incident."
The poll also shows that the easy availability of guns, lax or inattentive
parents, and
violent media come in for
the lion's share of the blame The poll shows a growing sense of public
worry for their
own children's safety in
school: More than half (55%) of parents with children in school
fear for their safety, up
form 37% a year ago.
Only 24% feared for their children in 1977. The poll shows
49% believe violent media
are a contributing factor,
and 52% say "stricter regulation" of the content of movies and TV
would help stem the
problem.
It seemed interesting to me that Klebold
had a black BMW. Been to the prom.
Lived is a very very nice house.
Military father. Hey this was not some poor
deprived outcast that he was being
painted to be...something is wrong with
this picture.
CNN makes Headline News statement
on the possibility that television and movie violence create a social
atmosphere that makes such
horrors possible...stating usually, news media prefer to ignore this old
story...
as in the case of tobacco,
the health hazards of violent television were recognized by experts and
even by
government agencies long
before public awareness began to build.
In 1972, there was a report
by a surgeon general's committee: "Television and Growing Up: The
Impact of
Televised Violence." By
1976, the case was so obvious that the American Medical Association's House
of
Delegates passed this resolution:
"The House declares TV violence threatens the health and welfare of young
Americans..."
Denial...
Ten years later, just as
the first U.S. generation raised on television reached the vulnerable,
crime-committing
years, the homicide rate
began a steep climb. After 15 years, it had doubled. Canada
had the same ex-
perience, as did other countries
like Africa where TV was brought to the populations.
"Industry spokespersons have
made innumbeable protestations of good intent," said Brandon Centerwall
who
did the above research..."but
nothing has happened. In over 20 years of monitoring television levels
of violence,
there has been no downward
movement."..
CNN's Philip Meyer in
article BELIEVE IT: TV Violence stalks streets of Littleton--your hometown.
Scott Poland of Houston,
a nationally recognized expert on school psychology, has testified before
Congress
twice in the last two years.
He believes Washington missed an opportunity in the wake of school shootings
in
Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas
and Oregon...."We went back to sleep," Poland said. "It saddens
me to say
that...We must do things
differently."
Some said they chose Tuesday
because it was April 20, noting that it is Hitler's birth date and the
some kids
refer to "420" as some kind
of marijuana designation. In Los Angeles, California 420 is the number
attached
to a marijuana charge in
Los Angeles for anybody's information.
LA Times....."Teachers,
for their part, often feel squeezed between parents who abrogate their
duties and
school systems that demand
high test scores. If the parents and the teachers can't fill the
need for affiliation
and guidance that teenagers
by nature require, then gangs and cliques--"Trench Coat Mafia" or other
wise--
are happy to step in.
Outsiders who once were geeky loners now can band together."
David Elkind, author of "All
Grown Up and No Place to Go." says, "Once, not long ago, families were
geared
toward protecting children:
providing them with guidance and direction, and with recreation geared
to their
developmental levels. But
in the aftermath of the 1960s, where every other kind of social convention
was
attacked from within, a
false sense of family egalitarianism took over...At the turn of the century,
we had the
development of pediatrics.
Now we have the veneration of geriatrics, "Elkind said. "Now
the needs of children
and adolescents are placed
below the needs of adults. We have taken a lot away from kids, particularly
from
adolescents. We used to
see them as immature, in need of adult guidance. Now we see them
a sophisticated,
ready for anything.
"It's really horrifying,"
said Arnett, a visiting professor at the Univ. of Maryland. "Some
of it I think (music) is really
poisonous. Youth culture
has existed for hundreds of years, but it is hard for me to think of anything
before the
last 20 years that was oriented
towards such violence."
To John Cole, a professor
of psychology at Duke University, the penchant for violence is the most
alarming trait
in today's youth culture.
"We haven't had this previously in our culture." he said, "where
kids or teenagers bring
guns to schools and start
shooting indiscriminately."
Look at the stats on the
numbers of children that have been raised by just their mothers over the
past three
decades. Especially the
past two where the stats exceed some 10 to 15 million children living with
just their
mothers. Then add
foster homes, adult jails, dent ion centers.
The little TV Robots were
going to go on and crash a plane into New York.
Folks...think about it!
Four 8th graders were arrest
in Wimberly, Texas days after Colorado, for a plot to
blow up the school.
Wimberly, Texas? This town is smaller and more laid back than
Littleton, CO ever thought
about being...It is a litttle hide-away paradise in the Texas
Hill Country out side of
Austin, Texas...the deadly little I saw it on TV robots are going
be be going off like little
candles in the wind all over the nation for the next few years...
Five bombs thrown at a
High School in Philadelphia
Threats in Dallas...
The little boy says with
a quivering lip...trying not to break down and "be like a man"...when he
tells the new
camera how he saw his his
friend Mat laying on the floor in the school library, smoking from the
side where they
had shot him. Some
tough swat team guy breaks down crying saying, "You feel like your stomach
is grabbing
you and your heart is at
your feet...there were bodies laying all over the floor. It was a
mess." Another Swat
team member on the scene
says, "I feel like I am empty living in a fog. When I saw that first
dead girl laying
there I saw my daughters
face in hers."
Col. David Grossman ...The
Psychology of Killing talked of simulated murder. That
they simulate
the cops, swats teams
etc. in these simulators. Your are learning to do it and live it...it
give you the
practice in this virtual
world simulated...Talks about the video games that kids use
being exactly
like the simulated murder
games for professional killers. These tools are used in military and police
to help them overcome
the fear to kill. To make killing in our soldiers a conditioned response...
ding!!!! There
goes the bell again!
And
now we meet in the town halls, in the capitols and at our schools to see
what can we do...NOW at this
late
hour when we have to use military controls and swat teams to deal with
our children. The bell rings
its
toll...
Searches
Suggestion Boxes in the
schools to turn in your school mates
Uniforms
Lock lockers
Metal detectors
No trench coats or baggy
clothes
No book bags or packs
Security cameras
More security
Close off most entrances
Phones in rooms
Get school to work on
plans with local police
Secure science labs where
chemicals are found
On the more mothering
and nurturing side.
More counselors
More PTA involvement
Problem-solving
Stress management
Assertiveness
Anger control
Impulse control
Medicated straight jackets
SOME RAN EAST...SOME RAN WEST
CHAPTERS
by
Benford
E. Standley
"TRUTH IS LIKE A TORCH...
FROM IT WE SHIELD OUR EYES
FOR FEAR OF BEING BURNED"
in the sand
Infanticide 333
In
Their Own Words
Poems
and words from the streets
Sins of the Fathers
The
Throwaway Child
Dear
God
What
happened
in Houston?
Down and out
in L.A.
an
ongoing saga of the homeless
Foster Lack of Care