School Shootings

During the 1997-98 school year, the American public was riveted by the images: small town and suburban schools taped off by police-lines, paramedics rushing to wheel tiny bodies away on gurneys and kids being carted off in hand-cuffs. As the national news media poured into Pearl, Mississippi; West Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Edinboro, Pennsylvania and Springfield, Oregon; the magnified coverage of these highly unusual crime stories turned into what some news outlets described as "an …

…it: "It scares me to death that I'm sending my child to a school...and in light of getting an education, I may end up burying her."(1) A middle school principal from a community that has experienced a 26 percent drop in juvenile crime - a community that hasn't had a murder arrest of an adult or juvenile in two years - warned a reporter after the Jonesboro shooting, "It could happen any place."(2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**