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Disturbed Student Does Not Open Fire at Washington High School, No Deaths Reported [Updated]
In sharp contrast to terrible news from Florida, KING 5 in Seattle reported on Valentine’s Day that a grandmother stopped her grandson from acting on a plan to commit mass murder at his school. The grandson lived with his grandparents and had problems leading to his enrollment in a diversion program high school. His alert and engaged grandparents became concerned. The grandmother went into his room, read his journal, discovered his plan, and called in the police. The boy is in custody.
From King5.com
An 18-year-old student was arrested after a journal was found detailing plans to shoot his classmates at ACES High School in Everett.
According to the Everett Police Department, the 18-year-old’s grandmother called 911 Tuesday morning after finding the journal and believed the threats to shoot students at the school were credible.
Police came, read the journal and found weapons in the room.
Court documents state the young man wrote, “I can’t wait to walk into class and blow all those (expletives) away,” and “I need to make this shooting/bombing infamous. I need to get the biggest fatality number I possible can.”
Prosecutors allege the suspect had inert grenades in his bedroom that he planned to fill with black powder along with the AK-47 hidden in a guitar case.
This story stands in stark contrast to other stories of mass shootings. An engaged adult did the hard but right thing and the police listened and responded to forestall the attack. The end result is that everyone, including the would-be shooter, lived. Instead of prayers for comfort and healing, prayers of thanksgiving are in order.
A KING5.com update on the foiled Everett school shooter reinforced the seriousness of the threat the grandmother exposed.
The student had friends at the school who thought all was well.
ACES student Olivia Fox said she was stunned at the accusations leveled against her close friend.
“There was lot of shock around the school when they released a picture of who it was,” she said. “Me and a couple of his other good friends are shaken up, because we know how good of a kid he is.”
But his journal and his rifle told a different story (emphasis added).
His defense attorney said he has no prior criminal history whatsoever. However, police believe the teen used the same AK-47 to rob a convenience store on February 12. Court documents state he wrote in his journal about how powerful he felt because of how scared the female clerk was.
It appears that we were spared another mass murder by a grandmother’s tough love.
Published in Policing
I don’t consider the veneer of civilization a “coat of Varnish”. I do know from 40 years of teaching special education that there are a lot of damaged kids who are not being identified and treated with appropriate intervenitons. Suspension from school or expulsion simply kicks the can down the road until it kicks back.
Once again, why the grandmother? What if the grandmother didn’t live there? Where are the parents?
The grandparents are apparently acting in the role of parent/guardian. Nothing wrong with that, indeed a boy raised by his grandparents might become a Supreme Court Justice. The appropriate family leader exercised parental responsibility to the ultimate extent of turning a young adult, still living under the family roof, over to law enforcement.
A very large number of my students were being raised by their grandparents. In many cases, these were terrific people, but as young men grow into adolescence the ability of an older grandparent to exercise control over the child lessens considerably. Most frequently, the grandparent was a single person, the husband having left or died. This brings us to the seemingly absolute need for a male presence in the home, preferably a father who is stable and involved in his son’s growth and development. The absence of a strong, male role model who is a primary reinforcer during the child’s development is a deficit for which the best female parent cannot fully compensate . A mother can be a very powerful influence, but as a young man enters adolescence she will lose much of her ability to control the behavior of the child, particularly when no consistent father has been a part of the child’s earlier life.
The Grandmother mentioned in @cliffordbrown‘s original post is not unusual in terms of her actions in this event. I have found grandmothers to be far more willing to take strong actions than single mothers. This may be due to their own experiences with the child’s absent parent and the realization that history, unedited, tends to repeat itself.