commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Mental illness is a many-faceted phenomenon and one of the facets can be either violent acting-out or the desire to violently act out. Although we generally think of schoolyard mass murder scenarios – whether “successful” or “nipped in the bud” – as a “guy thing”, a new potential mass schoolyard shooting at Radnor High School in Wayne, Pennsylvania alerts us to the fact that the dark desire to wreak havoc on campus must also be considered a “girl thing”.
In this case, the 17-year-old girl in question, who of course is not being identified at present, is both lucky and unlucky. She’s unlucky because she has a history of mental illness. But she’s extremely lucky because 1) she was apprehended well before she could have put her plan into action (she apparently didn’t even have any guns or explosives) and 2) the authorities are treating her with at least a modicum of consderation and respect.
First of all, she is being charged as a juvenile — the charges being making terrorist threats — and second, the psychiatric evaluation she is receiving appears to be geared toward helping her; at least that what Radnor Township Police Superintendent Bill Colarulo has implied:
“She is getting the help she needs,” Colarulo said.
David Lohr of Huffington Post writes:
Police in Pennsylvania say they have arrested a 17-year-old girl who had a “fascination” with school shootings and wrote about her desire to “flood the halls with corpses.”
“I could be the first female shooter,” the teenager wrote in her journal, according to Radnor Township Police Superintendent Bill Colarulo. “I’m homicidal, and I’m fine with that.”
I can’t help but wonder if this child, who is a senior at Radnor High School in the city of Wayne, perhaps wanted to be caught, and that her aggressive statements and gestures were, at least partly, a cry for help.
After all, although the exact details of how this transpired have not been revealed, she was arrested after school administrators at Radnor High discovered and confiscated her journal before contacting the police. Thus, she does not appear to have been particularly secretive.
That being said, there is no doubt that her aggressive statements were extremely inflammatory and certainly require the authorities to approach this with utmost seriousness.
“She made references to killing a teacher, killing her fellow students in a certain manner and … injuring herself,” Police Superintendent Colarulo told reporters Monday evening.
One of her journal entries read:
“I want to trap them, pick them off one by one. Blow up the cafeteria, shoot everyone in classrooms … Imagine the power, the bullets leaving the gun with a loud bang, piercing kids around me, the way they collapse, their blood splattering the floor … the screams.”
Most of us have heroes and the “sterling examples” of mass murder prowess in the minds of many wannabe and/or future mass murderers are the two disaffected teens from Columbine High School in Colorado, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, whose rampage in 1999 led to the deaths of 12 students and one teacher, before they turned their guns on themselves. At the time, it was one of the deadliest school shootings to occur in the U.S. It is noted that the enigmatic Adam Lanza, who also admired Klebold and Harris, killed 26 people including 20 first graders in 11 minutes in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 2012.
According to Colarulo, the 17-year-old girl who wrote that she wanted to “flood the halls with corpses,” was fascinated by the Columbine High School massacre.
The Police Superintendent informs that the teen even went so far as to write a letter to the parents of one of the Columbine shooters, the content of which has not yet (and may never be) revealed.
“There are always warning signs,” said Colarulo. “If you want to go back and reference the Columbine incident, there were numerous warning signs that went ignored, that went unnoticed and nobody took the proper action and made the report.”
Although no weapons have been connected to the girl or at her home, Colarulo stated that “it was important to take immediate action.”
“We would be remiss if we didn’t take these threats seriously.”
I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.
“As soon as it was recognized that these writings were bizarre and dangerous the appropriate steps were taken,” Colarulo said. “That’s what we hope people will do from now on.”
The girl’s parents are cooperating with the police.
Debbie Singer is a parent of a junior at Radnor High. She “told NBC10 her daughter and other students knew the suspect had a fascination with the Columbine massacre.”
“It’s very sad and it’s sad for the girl,” Singer said. “The rumor was this was going to happen at the pep rally.”
Now this last statement is clearly only a rumor. There’s no way the girl could have put her plan into action at a pep rally without weapons.
I would hope that this troubled child receives appropriate psychiatric help and is not required to spend any appreciable amount of time in juvenile custody. To require her to spend time in a mental hospital, however, would not seem unreasonable given the gravity of her “fantasies”.
She is currently being held in custody, presumably at a “regular” juvenile facility.
* * * * *
Although I’m not convinced this girl would have ever “lowered the boom” or even would have succeeded in building the arsenal of weapons required to launch a major (or even a minor) attack, it is certainly worrisome that we now have at least one example of a mentally disturbed female fantasizing vividly about committing mass murder. Where there is one girl, there could easily be (and probably are) others.
At the very least, this suggests that the desire among certain radically disaffected students to commit mayhem at their junior high and high schools is now so widespread that it is deeply engrained into the fabric of youth culture, a most worrisome proposition that MUST be taken seriously.
Police Superintendant Colarulo makes a very good point when he says:
“As soon as it was recognized that these writings were bizarre and dangerous the appropriate steps were taken. That’s what we hope people will do from now on.”
In other words, keep your eyes and ears open and don’t hesitate to go immediately to the proper authorities when something seems or feels wrong. It seems to me that there’s little doubt that some (and perhaps most) of the school mass murder scenarios of the past few decades could possibly have been avoided if those near and dear to the shooters (and that includes their teachers) had been more vigilant. Of course, it’s easy for me to open my big mouth. It’s much harder to stay alert for signs of a a potential disaster in the making.