School drama

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jfugina
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School drama

Post by jfugina »

No, not the normal teenage drama you'd expect. We've had teacher drama in the last day. Yesterday afternoon, one of the history teachers from Nicole's school was jogging on a trail near the school, where students and teachers run all the time. The cross country teams run there regularly. Yesterday while running though, this teacher was shot. The teacher passed another guy on the trail, and saw him enough to know he was a grown man, and note what he was wearing, which was not your typical workout clothes.

Once the man was behind the teacher, the man shot the teacher in the back. Multiple shots were fired, but fortunately the only one that hit the teacher hit his shoulder. The shooter ran off, and the teacher was able to get himself from the trail to the nearby road where he flagged someone down who took him back to the school where he was met by an ambulance.

What. The. Actual. FUCK?!?

I mean, I'm sorry for the language, but really. WTF? So the school was on lockdown all day, and there were SWAT teams around the school while they looked for the guy. I initially thought that was the dumbest waste of time ever because what idiot would hang out near the crime scene? But they then apprehended a "person of interest" today near the school, and the lockdown was lifted. Person of interest? They gave an all clear without the guy being positively ID'd as the shooter?

The other frightening thing was, there are now multiple students who have reported regularly seeing a man on that same trail as they were running XC, and it stuck in their memory because the guy was always in "work clothes", which was really odd for a jogging trail. And the teacher identified the shooter as being in khakis and a long black coat. Other teachers are also admitting to having seen the suspect around the school grounds and he seemed kinda creepy. OH. MY. GOD.

It's a freaking miracle that only one person was injured, and that this guy wasn't a better shot. There are people coming and going from that school all night for extracurricular stuff. The school is completely open until 8:30 each night. Nicole is up there for guard practice from 6-9 twice a week. I really hope I hear news that the "person of interest" is in fact the shooter, because until that happens, there's still some creep out there with a gun who's creeping around the school and hanging out where kids and teachers practice.
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pbp908
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Re: School drama

Post by pbp908 »

O.M.G. :shock:
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Debbie J

Re: School drama

Post by Debbie J »

Wow, too close to home! It’s become an every day occurrence and people are becoming immune to it. So sad.something really needs to be done but no one can figure out what,

I took my 9 year old grandson to a corn maze here in Mesa and there were a ton of people there and we were having a hard time finding a parking space. We finally found one as and Jak gets out of the car he say “ “Nana, wait , what if there is a shooter.” I was floored that was what he was worried about, I told him we would play dead and he was ok with that. So sad 9 year olds have to worry about that.
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Re: School drama

Post by Monica »

pbp908 wrote:O.M.G. :shock:
I second that.
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paddlegal
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Re: School drama

Post by paddlegal »

I am so sorry this happened at Nicole’s school and relieved that the teacher will survive this horrendous attack. It just shows how vigilant we all must be when we notice someone out of place especially near a school. I hope the person of interest is the perp and he is buried under the jailhouse.



Be careful out there...everyone.
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jfugina
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Re: School drama

Post by jfugina »

Debbie, that just breaks my heart. No, I agree - 9 year olds should not have to have that thought on their mind, ever.

Thankfully, Nicole was already home when it happened, but nearby schools (including Jake's) went on a soft lockdown (no one enters or leaves, but students still move freely within the school). However, that doesn't mean that they don't do a mostly normal dismissal, and Jake was still going to be walking from the bus stop to home by himself while this guy was still on the loose. And even though we're several miles from the high school, I'll admit that him walking from the bus to home freaked me out yesterday.

Apparently they found a tent in the woods near the school this morning, and that's what caused this morning's lockdown while the SWAT team looked for whoever was occupying the tent. Here's a local version of the news story. The High School went on a hard lock down (no one leaves the room they're in) while they closed in on the person of interest. Every school within several miles remained on soft lockdown.

I think the school handled the situation as well as could have been expected and did a good job of protecting everyone once the shooting had occurred. But at the time, there's no way to have accounted for the number of kids who might have been out on that trail. XC season is over, but the weather has been unseasonably warm, and many XC kids are still out running in the off-season. And now - how on earth are these kids and faculty ever going to feel safe on that trail again? How is the community supposed to take their kids hiking or biking on these trails again? This is a public use area, and I've personally spent a ton of time on these trails. The Weldon Spring parks and rec areas have some awesome trails with fantastic scenery. The school is surrounded by a wildlife conservation area on all sides. When I was losing weight, I went on these trails *by myself* almost every weekend. Sometimes I was MILES deep into the woods and there would have been no way I could have gotten myself back to a main road even with a minor gunshot wound.

I hope the guy they apprehended turns out to be the shooter, and they're able to get some answers as to his motivation.
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jfugina
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Re: School drama

Post by jfugina »

paddlegal wrote:I am so sorry this happened at Nicole’s school and relieved that the teacher will survive this horrendous attack. It just shows how vigilant we all must be when we notice someone out of place especially near a school. I hope the person of interest is the perp and he is buried under the jailhouse.
Agreed! This wasn't one of Nicole's teachers, but he does teach Freshman History, so many of her friends have him, and everyone who knows him says he's a great guy and not someone you can imagine being specifically targeted. All indications are that this was totally random - could have been anyone. I think that it will be a long time before anyone at that school even walks to their car alone. I don't think the XC kids ever run solo, but I'll bet they get super strict about making the kids stay in packs when they're running near the school for the near future, at least.

I love Weldon Spring. It's got a country feel, but the city is just minutes away. But the bucolic feel only makes the "bad stuff" harder to see. It's there, but it's much more difficult to admit its existence.
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pbp908
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Re: School drama

Post by pbp908 »

I'm going to just put this out there, even though I'm opening myself up for a crap load of criticism. Maybe Tawanda should take this one instead of me.

This type of situation is exactly why:
a. ..there needs to be some common sense in this country. If the people who saw the "suspicious looking" guy hanging around had reported him, maybe this could have been headed off at the pass. Instead everyone is worried about offending someone else and things like this happen. and ..
b. All it would have taken was one person, one adult who responsibly had a weapon with him/her, to have stopped this person in their tracks and put a screeching halt to the worry of everyone affected by this. This is exactly why I've had training in firearms, why I have a concealed carry license, and why I carry - to defend myself, my family, and innocent others.

Unfortunately, the group of people who end up taking the heat for things like this happening are the law abiding millions like myself who do not purchase illegally, who obey the established State and federal laws concerning gun ownership and usage, and are not seeking to use our weapons to harm others unless it's in self defense. I give this less than another 24 hours before the "ban all guns" groups crawl out of the woodwork. As someone once famously said - "never let a good tragedy go to waste."
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Re: School drama

Post by pamcook »

pbp908 wrote:I'm going to just put this out there, even though I'm opening myself up for a crap load of criticism. Maybe Tawanda should take this one instead of me.

This type of situation is exactly why:
a. ..there needs to be some common sense in this country. If the people who saw the "suspicious looking" guy hanging around had reported him, maybe this could have been headed off at the pass. Instead everyone is worried about offending someone else and things like this happen. and ..
b. All it would have taken was one person, one adult who responsibly had a weapon with him/her, to have stopped this person in their tracks and put a screeching halt to the worry of everyone affected by this. This is exactly why I've had training in firearms, why I have a concealed carry license, and why I carry - to defend myself, my family, and innocent others.

Unfortunately, the group of people who end up taking the heat for things like this happening are the law abiding millions like myself who do not purchase illegally, who obey the established State and federal laws concerning gun ownership and usage, and are not seeking to use our weapons to harm others unless it's in self defense. I give this less than another 24 hours before the "ban all guns" groups crawl out of the woodwork. As someone once famously said - "never let a good tragedy go to waste."
Agreed.
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jfugina
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Re: School drama

Post by jfugina »

I fall somewhere in the middle of the gun issue. I am completely in favor of responsible gun ownership, and while concealed carry does freak me out a bit, I know that locally at least, firearms training is required for a concealed carry license. So while I don't think that gun ownership should be banned, I do feel like that kind of device should be more tightly controlled. I don't know how to solve that, but I don't think there's any valid reason for semi- and fully- automatic weapons should be available to civilians, for starters. I also wish that owning guns was more like owning cars. Most of the time when people buy and sell cars, they transfer the title. So for the most part, it's possible to figure out who owns what particular car at any given time. In addition to the title, you have to re-register every two years for plates and pay personal property taxes. I'd never suggest an annual tax on firearms, but listing them on personal property forms every year would be a great way to get an inventory of at least the responsible ownership. And it seems to me that the "under the table" stuff might be minimized because no seller wants to be on record as the owner of something that's later used to commit a crime. Forget background checks. Unless it's universal and every citizen has a psych eval on record, it's not going to help. But an inventory of who owns what an any given time, and making an effort to track down guns that "go missing" from the personal property logs - there's something that I could get behind. But that's just me.

Now, that said, I differ in the opinion that having more responsible carriers out there in the world would help deter the criminals. In this particular case, this happened in the woods on a jogging trail. Now, I don't actually know any licensed carry folks who also happen to have a jogging habit, so I honestly don't know if a jogger would ever want to carry while running. My guess is no, so that wouldn't have solved this particular problem. It certainly wouldn't have made a difference if it were pack of XC kids and he'd opened fire.

The one thing I FULLY agree with, is that this should have been reported the very first time someone saw this guy and got the heebie jeebies. But yeah if you accuse someone of being a creep, and they're just out walking around for exercise (in work clothes), then you become the asshole.

This didn't get any press outside of local news, and it wasn't even a big story locally (probably because no one actually died). So I don't think any screams for reform are likely to occur. There is probably no type of reform that would have prevented this guy from buying his gun and his ammo, possibly quite legally with a background check, and then some random life event lands him living in a tent in the woods, slowly going crazy. I'm not saying that's what happened, but we do now know that the guy they apprehended was the occupant of the tent and was the shooter. And I don't think any amount of gun control would have changed what happened.
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EDelValle
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Re: School drama

Post by EDelValle »

I don't know if the school has a security person or not,
in New York the high schools either have school security
or a police officer from the local precinct assigned to the school.
It would not be unreasonable for a security person to stop
the guy and ask what his business was on the track since it is used by
high school students. Students, teachers and staff should be
told that if they do see someone in the area that doesn't quite fit,
report it. As the well known saying goes, better safe than sorry.
An innocent person might get embarrassed, but should understand the need
for the questions.
In this day and age unfortunately, we need to be aware of our surroundings
and take steps to protect ourselves
My son was a police officer assigned to a high school and if he
saw anyone that looked like they did not belong in the area of the
school or someone loitering he asked for ID and the reason they
were in the area. One student's father got upset when he was parked sitting
watching the students in the common area, when he was asked for ID and
got really loud about it. My son had to tell him, your daughter is a student here,
you should be happy I'm asking you to ID yourself, because I don't know that
you're a father of a student, you could be anyone maybe looking to grab
a student. At the end of the day, the father came back and
apologized
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paddlegal
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Re: School drama

Post by paddlegal »

pbp908 wrote:I'm going to just put this out there, even though I'm opening myself up for a crap load of criticism. Maybe Tawanda should take this one instead of me.

This type of situation is exactly why:
a. ..there needs to be some common sense in this country. If the people who saw the "suspicious looking" guy hanging around had reported him, maybe this could have been headed off at the pass. Instead everyone is worried about offending someone else and things like this happen. and ..
b. All it would have taken was one person, one adult who responsibly had a weapon with him/her, to have stopped this person in their tracks and put a screeching halt to the worry of everyone affected by this. This is exactly why I've had training in firearms, why I have a concealed carry license, and why I carry - to defend myself, my family, and innocent others.

Unfortunately, the group of people who end up taking the heat for things like this happening are the law abiding millions like myself who do not purchase illegally, who obey the established State and federal laws concerning gun ownership and usage, and are not seeking to use our weapons to harm others unless it's in self defense. I give this less than another 24 hours before the "ban all guns" groups crawl out of the woodwork. As someone once famously said - "never let a good tragedy go to waste."


BRAVO! Agree, Agree! I am about to take the next step towards a CCW.
FARLEY in Sacramento
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