Teachers Fake Gunman Attack 863
Anti_Climax writes "Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to these teachers after the charges brought against students in recent months."
Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
At least a Disturbing the Peace Charge (Score:5, Interesting)
The new "Stop, drop and roll" for the '00's? (Score:5, Interesting)
I grew up in US/USSR Cold War times and spent a few schoolday hours a year huddled in the fallout shelter basement during drills. We also had tornado, flood and fire drills. What fun.
Seems to me that as shootings get more prevalent it might be a good idea to have drills to limit deaths from mass panic.
Re:Crying "wolf" (Score:2, Interesting)
Poor Judgment (Score:5, Interesting)
When an adult does it, it's "poor judgment;" when a student does it, it's "a potential threat that must be dealt with seriously."
Re:At least a Disturbing the Peace Charge (Score:5, Interesting)
They (thought) it was a correct behaviour in this "post 9/11 world" (whatver that is), and were made to look extremely foolish. But now we have an ACTUAL case of terrorism. In this case, these teachers *actually* terrorized these students. There motivation matters not. They have *actually* done to these children what the Boston Authorities (B.A.) did to Boston (but, then, pinned the blame on the ATHF, who had no reason to think anyone could react in the ridiculous manner of the B.A.
These teachers should be drawn and quartered for their ACTUAL act of abuse of these children.
Aw get over it already (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep the teachers were total jobs, OK.
Kids got to learn the hard way about themselves. - almost always a good thing.
No-one got hurt, no I don't care if someone got stressed for 5 minutes. Getting stressed is an unfortunate part of life, get over it and learn to deal with it. If you don't push the human brain to go beyond it's comfort zone, it may never get out of being a whining spoiled brat that most of us are. This is probably the biggest favor some of these kids will ever have done to them.
Tomorrow most will forget.
Yep the teachers were total jobs.
Let the punishment fit the crime (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, some decades ago... before Columbine, before the year 2000 incident when what's his name shot coworkers at Edgewater Technology, and I believe before incidents in post offices made the phrase "going postal" part of the language... on one Halloween I thought it would be funny to wear a Halloween mask at work. It was a corpse-like mask that fit over my head. Apart from the mask, I was wearing my ordinary work clothes. I sort of scrooged down behind my computer monitor. I waited for a couple of coworkers to walk buy, then slowly stood up, saying nothing.
Let me tell you, I was completely taken aback by the intensity of the moment of terror that evoked in my coworkers. The unspoken thought was that people don't wear masks unless they're robbing a bank, or something. I immediately took of the mask, apologized profusely, never did it again. I wasn't fired, lectured, or disciplined, but those coworkers were cool toward me for some time. I realized I'd made a serious goof.
They were adults. It was Halloween. I did not have any weapons. I didn't jump out. I didn't say anything: not "Boo!", not "stick 'em up," or anything suggesing violence.
And for a fraction of a second--my colleagues were in fear for their lives. Only a fraction of a second, but that's the effect of doing something like that.
I can't begin to imagine the effects of a staged mock attack by adults on eleven-year-old-kids lasting for five minutes. That's not a short period of time to be in fear for one's life.
did they train them first? (Score:3, Interesting)
did they coordinate with local law inforcement and emergency services so they knew it was only a drill and participate in the drill?
if something like this was done right it could be a good thing, this shows none the signs of having been done right.
wonder what would have happened if someone had been seriously injured or killed in the panic?
Re:Crying "wolf" (Score:2, Interesting)
It would have been quite dangerous for teachers... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Learning about authority (Score:5, Interesting)
>This is one of the lessons that most people don't get, until much later in life.
I wonder what if one of the students had brought a gun that day? Maybe shot the hooded teacher who rattled the door?
hmph
Procedures (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember one year, where they announced on Monday Morning that they would run the drill at some point on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. They paged, we hid, then police officers cleared each room and told us what a wonderful job we had done. That was that.
A planned drill is fine, these procedures should be rehearsed. But, what if one of these kids tried to be a hero? Someone really could have gotten hurt. These teachers need to be sacked, at the very lease.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some sort of "drill" for these things might not be a bad idea. Panic and poor preparation are 2 major killers in all life-and-death situations, so preparing students for this kind of thing can save lives. Make it dynamic, throwing a few curveballs into the mix (chained doors and such) to help them think on their feet. I mean, fire drills are pretty common and I'd imagine "bomb drills" are done, and let's not forget the "H Bomb Drills" of old (duck and cover!).
Then again, they approached this thing poorly. They didn't treat it as a drill and instead scared the living goose feathers out of the kids. That's just messed up, particularly since the kids were so young and it was so soon after the VT shootings when people are nervous about such things. That would be like your boss screaming "There's a plane heading for our skyscraper! RUN!" on like 10/12/2001.
A drill? (Score:2, Interesting)
In Soviet America... (Score:1, Interesting)
wonder what if one of the students had brought a gun that day? Maybe shot the hooded teacher who rattled the door?
It would have served the fucking moron right. If you rob a liquor store with a toy gun, it's still armed robbery. If you threaten someone with a toy gun it's still assault with a deadly weapon. If you point a toy gun at a cop, he'll shoot you, and the shooting is legally justified.
Why weren't these people charged with a crime?
-mcgrew
Re:Crying "wolf" (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno - didn't scar me for life when it happened (Score:5, Interesting)
First thing in the morning, he's starting up a lesson, and some guy barges into the room ranting about how he'd been cut off in traffic, and how angry he was. After a few shouted exchanges, he pulled a cap gun out of hit pocket and "shot" my teacher - though he got excited and "shot" himself in the foot instead. Then he ran out of the room.
I think the point of the lesson was to teach us how to be good eyewitnesses or something. I don't remember if my teacher had a fake blood pack or not - could be that my memory has embellished it.
We weren't cowering under our desks, but the accuracy of our eyewitness accounts was shockingly bad even seconds after the event.
Mr. Selvig was a great teacher.
Re:Poor judgement (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:2, Interesting)
Those things aren't as popular now as they were a couple decades ago, but still.
I don't know about your school, but at mine, when the fire alarm went off, only the principal and vice principal knew if it was an actual drill. The teachers didn't know, for safety's sake---they have to learn how to take care of the students in emergency situations.
6th grade might be a bit young for a gunman outside the door, but my older sister's elementary school (in like 1st-2nd grade) did "tornado alerts" where the kids were barricaded under desks. Actually, at that age, most of the kids were like, "Huh? Are we playing a game?" but the brighter ones in the class understood what tornados were and what could actually happen and were scared shitless.
Ask anyone who went to school during the cold war in the US (or, let's go farther back---kids in britain in WWI) about air siren drills, or anyone who's gone to school in a town with a nuclear reactor about "fallout exercises." (Run toward the reactor, never away from it. Why? Hint: Wind.)
What the teachers did wasn't very bright, but if the school had sent letters home to the parents informing them that they would start loose-gunman-drills and gave the kids some training ahead of time (but reminded them to act like it was a real emergency), I don't see a problem with it. (In fact, if everybody is so sure that school shootings are about to become the next manmade-disaster trend, I would argue it is irresponsible for a school to *not* have training in place.)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree that it's lame. My comment has already been modded down from a 2 to a 0, though...unfortunately, for some reason, any comment that I've made here regarding gun-rights gets modded down, no matter how politely I phrase my opinions. Even if I state that I do support gun rights, although along with certain restrictions of those rights. Sadly, it would seem that many gun-toting people are somewhat uncomfortable with discourse, which, I guess is part of the problem.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:2, Interesting)
The suggestion that this event could have ended in tragedy if students had guns is not a special circumstance. If at any time someone falsely convinces you that there is an immediate and deadly threat, and you take action that would be deemed appropriate under that kind of circumstance, the person who instigated the hoax and incited you to action is legally responsible.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Interesting)
Oops...I hit submit too soon...Anyway, the problem with the idea of allowing anybody to carry a concealed weapon, as has been proposed in Texas, is that the assumption is made that all gun-owners are responsible, upstanding citizens. That's clearly not the case. Not to cast dispersion on gun-owners, but no group of citizens is made up completely of responsible people who should be trusted with toting a concealed deadly weapon into sensitive public spaces.
Right now, it's easy to keep criminals with guns out of courtrooms. You check everybody for guns at the door. But if you start allowing anybody to carry a gun into a courtroom, that means criminals can get in, too. Sure, the chances that a mass-killing would occur would be much smaller, because the gunman would be shot quickly, but it only takes one shot to kill, for instance, a judge. Such a killing in a courtroom would have repercussions much farther than that individual person who happens to be a judge. It would signal a breakdown in law and order. I think it's makes much more sense to have armed, trained, background-checked, guards in courtrooms, which is what we already have. There are also generally tons of armed police in the average courthouse. It seems to me that having untrained, unchecked civilians carrying guns is more of a liability than anything.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
As an owner of a paintball field I'm around guns a hell of a lot. When everything happened at VT and I heard the guy simply walked in and shot people one by one, I was incredibly confused. I could not for the life of me think of a reason why you would watch a man with a gun walk in and start shooting your friends and NOT DO ANYTHING TO DEFEND YOURSELF. Obviously I wasn't there, and obviously there were probably some other circumstances. But out of thirty, what was it thirty two, people not one picked up a desk or a book and chucked it at this guy's head.
We (in general) have lost our survival instinct. We've lost that 'fight or flight' and we've become sheep-like. "Oh, it's not me. Maybe he'll leave aft-
So yes. Maybe drills are the way to go. Paintball has helped me find my instincts (nothing to get your ass moving like a guy shooting 15 balls a second at you), but I realise that's not for everyone. People just need to be aware that, and this is key, shit happens! You can not plan for everything, but you have to be able to REACT.
To stray back to the topic at hand, this is really fucked up and these teachers should be fired and given some kind of counseling. Something has to be loose in your head to think this is OK to do.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:4, Interesting)
As mentioned, the mental dregs of society can still do a multitude of dangerous things (drink, drive, buy materials for making meth labs and other explosive devices, vote, etc.), so this is probably one of those instances that Jefferson was talking about with favoring "dangerous liberty over peaceful slavery." Ultimately, it comes down to either: an acceptable substitute is provided in cases where concealed carry is not in the interest of the operators of a building (such as a court house, which has plentiful security to mitigate risk of assassination and keep the onsite criminals under control) OR the building operators are exercising their rights to (stupidly, I would say) prohibit possession of weapons by people who have no will to use them on that premises, with force of criminal trespass charges behind them. Which certainly has prevented a slew of robberies...or not, as someone intending to commit robbery doesn't give half a damn if the owner prohibits guns in their home or place of business.
Are there a few bad apples with CCW permits? Absolutely, but they are few and far between. Let's not forget that the police mistakenly shoot more innocents than CCW permit holders do, and generally with poorer accuracy...and there are more permit holders than cops in any given state, I am willing to venture (well, except states where there are no permits). I don't mean to disparage the police (too much), but having a badge does not automatically make one the best shot...one still has to practice. And I know they are "looking for trouble" with the intent of stopping it, but still, you'd think they'd shoot fewer innocent people than those "crazy gun toting cowboy hick vigilante wannabees with itchy trigger fingers" (that job is reserved to the President). So, as with anything (cars coming to mind with drunk drivers), you have to let the idiots do it too until they screw up and lose their privileges. I prefer liberty over legalism, and that I might be self-reliant for the most part, including protection of myself from the ill-willed or utterly foolish.
Re:I dunno - didn't scar me for life when it happe (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it was real blood. Pig's blood. Anyway....
It was test day, and on the test was a strange question, way down towards the end - "#36 What has just been released into your body?" Plan was to do something shocking and then ask them to answer question #36; correct answer is "adrenaline" of course.
So the students are quietly taking their test, my father sitting at his desk, when in walks his friend dressed as a mafia character; brim hat, dark glasses, pin stripes... He says, "You Smith?" as tho he doesn't know him, and then pulls out a (fake) gun, says, "Nobody give my kid an F and gets away with it," unloads some caps for the bang bang sound, my dad slaps his chest bursting the blood bag and falls dramatically behind his desk.
When retelling this story, my dad says that he was so nervous that he'd make a fool of himself, that his students were nearly adults (only seniors are allowed to take the psychology elective), and as he twitched a little behind his desk he thought he'd blown it because he didn't hear anything. No guffaws, no shrieking... nothing. So he jumps up expecting to tell them to answer question #36, but stops short when he sees the carnage in front of him.
Blood had splattered on three students in the front row. One girl, who caught a great deal of it, was in catatonic shock so med techs and an ambulance had to be called in. Big, bad football players had pissed their pants. Several had thrown up or passed out. Everyone, I mean *everyone* was seriously damaged. They did not complete the test, nor the rest of the school day.
He almost lost his job, but since he was new the administration chalked it up to being green and inexperienced. From then on he just uses a couple of firecrackers to get his kids to experience shock adrenaline and learn about that particular facet of psychology known as "fight or flight" - which is very different than "trauma" by any definition.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of the rare situations I'd condone the use of CCTV in public schools. Catch the idiots, kick them out, then (most importantly) get rid of the cameras.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
The question is, when everybody else around you is hiding, running, ducking and covering, how difficult would it be for you not to do the same?
But, I agree with you that a little back bone and some forewarning could have easily reversed the hunter/prey situation in the Virginia Tech shooting.
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Statists like yourself fail to understand the statistics of small numbers. In a land of ten thousand tiny republics, an individual republic is rather likely to be taken by a bout of foolishness, as reported daily by purveyors of lurid debauchery (i.e., the news). Each one is small enough that a single fool or madman can temporarily convince enough of the people to do something utterly absurd. Statists read this and congratulate themselve for having a strong, rational government that is vastly less likely to be co-opted.
What they ignore is that the localized madness serves as a relief valve, to let the madness free in a contained way, and to hold up as a horrible example to the other tiny republics. The madness runs quickly to completion, and everyone gives it up as a bad idea at around the same time**. Conversely, although a strong centralized government is vastly less likely to come off the rails, when it does there are no internal barriers to keep the fire from consuming everything, and little untouched reserve capacity to rebuild afterwards.
**Remember that school in Colorado whose board decided to ban the teaching of evolution. It was little reported, particularly in the European press, that the locals had reversed the ban before the statist parties could even get going, despite the statists calling in all their favors to ram the case through a Federal court.
100 million dead. Few of them Americans. A free man's prudence is a statist's paranoia.
You propose to run the most important yet most abstract functions of giant nations with unwritten rules? If one tried that with even a tennis tournament, there would be unending strife and turmoil and likely bloodshed.
Unwritten rules only work for a mono-culture. Clear written rules allow cultures to mingle without either destroying each other or being assimilated Borg-style.
Re:OK, so first step (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Under the PATRIOT Act... (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhmm, not likely. Been there, dealt with it effectively.
I used to work in a truckstop, turnin' wrenches in Breezewood, PA. One afternoon I was there in the middle bay of a three bay garage fixing a flat on a semi. I had a tire hammer, braeaking the bead on a truck tire. (tire hammer weighs about 6lb. with an 18-24" handle) Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone 'sneaking' around the front corner at the first bay with something in his hand pointed into the garage towards me. As I looked up at him, I saw he had a revolver in his hand and his hand tensing, the cylinder started to rotate.(he was about 30 feet away) Still stooped over, I flung the tire hammer at him..hit him center of chest (right in the 10-ring! for you target shooters out there)- he collapsed while dropping the revolver.
Sucked to be him, he was just going to 'play a joke on me' with a starter gun with blanks.
As Nelson would say: "HA! HA!"
Shattered sternum, internal bleeding, broken ribs...it must have really hurt to laugh! And no, I did not feel bad about it at all.
The PA State Trooper that responded to the call examined the revover and said he would have reacted in the same spirit because it was impossible to tell it wasn't a real firearm from farther than several feet away.
Granted, a tire hammer may be more effective than a textbook, but I can't believe that nothing was at hand to someone.
The only real weapon is the mind, all else are tools to use or abuse.