Puzzlement After Amish Shootings
Experts diverge however, on whether the recent incidents, only one of which was committed by a student, represent a disturbing shift to crimes perpetrated by outsiders.
William Lassiter, the manager of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence, part of North Carolina's Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said he found only 11 murders since 1992 committed in school by people who had no connection to the school.
"It's just absolutely bizarre how the individuals appeared out of the blue," says Ronald Stephens, the executive director of the National School Safety Center, a California nonprofit. "It's like lightning has struck twice in a week."
But Fox said that those who think school shootings by outsiders are new are "myopic." In 1988, Laurie Dann attacked an Illinois school to which she had no obvious connection, killing one, and spawned a series of copycats, Fox says. Given the small number of cases each year, it is hard to prove any trends.
In the wake of the incidents, Stephens and Lassiter recommended that all schools review safety plans and consider reinforcing security systems. Fox is more skeptical about the benefits of such an approach, however.
"When you look at a lot of these cases, security doesn't really prevent an attack," he says. He cites the 1998 attack in Jonesboro, Ark., where two students pulled the fire alarm and waited until students exited the school before opening fire.
All agree, however, that in the one-room schoolhouse attacked Monday, there was only so much teachers could have done.
"It would have been very difficult, if not impossible to keep this guy from coming in," Stephens says.
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