School Shootings

A conversation with Joseph A. Lieberman, author of SCHOOL SHOOTINGS -
What Every Parent and Educator Needs to Know to Protect Our Children, compiled from TV and radio interviews from the past two years.

WHAT MAKES YOUR BOOK DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS ON THIS SUBJECT?
First, it examines over 160 school shootings and barely averted incidents from their origins in the 1960s right into spring, 2008, exploring how they overlap, influence and relate to each other, how they cluster geographically and chronologically, and why they still continue, not only in the United States but globally. No other book is that comprehensive.
Secondly, the book interweaves the singular narrative of the only school shooter ever arrested for having a loaded, stolen gun at school – who was then, strangely, released to his parents, whom he shot and killed hours before his school rampage. I wanted to know how and why that could happen, and the answer was shocking.

WHAT MAKES YOUR PERSPECTIVE DIFFERENT?
I returned to the U.S. in 1999 and settled in Oregon after spending half my life abroad. I observed sweeping changes in American society, almost like a time traveler, and I think that gave me a unique perspective about the bigger picture of what’s been happening here. Also, I’ve been a photojournalist since 1988 and a teacher since 1972, both in the US and overseas, teaching at every level from middle school through adult education. I’ve been in the trenches, I’m not writing from an ivory tower.

WHAT SPURRED YOUR INTEREST IN THIS SUBJECT?
This was one of those “I didn’t find it, it found me” circumstances. By chance, I met several people who had been involved in the same school shooting - a student who’d been in the midst of the carnage, the shooter’s defense lawyer, a first responder. Some people say there’s no such thing as coincidence - that everything happens for a reason - and I think this was one of those cases. No one had written about that incident before, though it was horrific, with two dead and the highest number of wounded in history. Investigating that just naturally led me into all the others.

WHAT WAS YOUR REASON FOR WRITING A SECOND BOOK?
My first book was published in spring 2006. That fall, there were over 26 school shooting incidents and arrests, including the Amish school in Pennsylvania. The following April was Virginia Tech. This past Valentine’s Day there was Northern Illinois University. I could see school shooting was morphing and mutating in several directions, and I couldn’t let that go unanswered.

WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH WENT INTO YOUR BOOK?
Among the literature that was out there, I found many books that concentrated on just a few cases of school shooting or focused on a narrow aspect of why these events occur. I found few that took a holistic approach – gathering views from sociologists, psychiatrists, teachers, administrators, religious leaders, lawyers, parents and victims of shooters, and what the shooters themselves had to say about their crimes, and then putting it all together in a coherent manner with an international perspective.
So, that’s what I set out to do - find the constants and variables, and why it is that out of 10,000 kids with a similar problem, only one will take a gun to school. I think I found that answer, but it’s not a simple answer, which is why I wrote a book.

CAN YOU SHARE WITH US AT LEAST PART OF THE ANSWER?
There’s a proverb that the community prepares the crime, the criminal commits it. You can’t separate the act of school shooting from the society in which it emerged. That’s something a lot of people aren’t comfortable hearing, but it needs to be addressed, along with the role of SSRI drugs, media influences and the thirst for fame, suicidal ideation, extinction behavior, access to weapons, gender questions, and how school shootings overseas have differed from those here in the U.S.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO STOP SCHOOL SHOOTINGS?
To know how to combat a crime, you need the knowledge of how and why it occurs. I’m setting out the bigger picture, saying this is what happened in the past, this is what we’ve learned, this is what we can expect to happen, and this is what we can do about it. We need to think multi-dimensionally, because if we don’t, the shooters stay way ahead of us.

WHAT ARE THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT PARENTS AND EDUCATORS SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN?

Report! Report! Report! The most consistent aspect of every school shooting is that afterwards, so many people say, “I thought he was only joking!” Students can protect each other and save lives by reporting even the suspicion of a threat. They are on the front lines, but educators need to take those reports very seriously and understand, “Yes, it CAN happen here!” Administrators should have a plan in place, such as the Johnson 4-in-1 Drills mentioned in my book, and ready a Crisis Response Team before any problem takes place.
When the signs are there, parents must be prepared to overcome their own sense of denial that a son (or daughter) is capable of violence. In my book, I give a list of 13 red flag warning signs, plus a list of resources for further assistance, including a national school threat report line.