School Violence | 05/18/2009 9:55 am
Student Draws Up 'Kill List,' but School Does Nothing
A Colorado high school student spent her time compiling a so-called "kill list," including pictures of weapons she would use, yet school officials say they can’t do anything to prevent her from attending class.
The list was discovered last week by another student, one who happened to be on the list of eight potential targets. The student showed it to her mother, who went to the police, who in turn went to school officials. Officials at the school, Denver’s Bryant-Webster K-8, say they have assessed the situation and have found no "viable threat," and therefore cannot kick out the student, who was simply expressing herself.
The mother of the girl who found the list, however, says the school is being too lenient in a post-Columbine world.
What do you think, reader — should students who have "kill lists" face automatic expulsion, suspension, or simply in-school counseling?
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27 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I agree. There are lots of questions here that we can’t answer. Is the girl writing the "kill list" being bullied? Maybe she is being bullied by the girl who found the list? Is the girl who found the list being teased?
However, in this day and age (lordy, that makes me feel old!), it would be more prudent for the school involved to take this seriously and further investigate the situation. Any threat of violence needs to be taken seriously.
exactly! some kids are just eccentric, some don’t have good judgement, some just do stupid things without realizing the extent of the stupidity. it is a very good idea to look at the individual student before judging them and calling them a whack job.
of course, there is a small percentage that end up like the columbine kids. most of the time, they are being bullied, victimized and harassed at school. that’s usually a sign.
Whether the child follows thru or not—is moot! What IS necessary to take notice of, however, is that she actually wrote up a list and did some research….what is not being addressed in this story, is the importance of getting that girl to a therapist to find out was it going on that would cause her to ‘daydream’ about killing people in school!
SOME sort of investigation into the causes of her desparate thinking, is in order—-for her sake!
my best friend from middle school had a kill list - how funny, she even titled it the same. but her list was long, it had about 200 people on it. basically she took her anger and frustration out with it. if someone was mean to her or rude, she would write their name down and, with stars, measure how angry she was at the person.
99% of her friends were on it… *chuckle*
i’m going to have to e-mail this to her. she’s going to die laughing.
Whatever is wrong with society, guns and violence abound? Too much violence in video games and on TV, guns being the most used weapon to do away with someone you don’t like and they are always being glorified. What makes me laugh about our society is we show guns and folks being killed in movies without blinking an eye but God forbid someone should show a bare breast or butt cheek that has to be blanked out on the screen (TV). Glorifying one and making the other seem wrong….I know I would sooner see a bare breast as that is a natural part of the human body than to see someone being shot as that is not natural!! Do these teachers want another mass school shooting on their hands, if she has mentioned these ideas shouldn’t she have seen a counselor or someone?