Murder copycats

[LynnDel]

Yesterday several college campuses across the nation were closed due to received threats spawned from Monday's sad event at Virginia Tech. Who knows the reasons for the threats - perhaps a twisted sense of humor, escape from class attendance, someone taking a dare, or even someone who really means it.

I watched an interview this morning on Good Morning America, with Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist. He had some interesting and, I thought, wise things to say. I don't believe that the American media will follow his advice, however. See Good Morning America interview

These events have been brought, in a small way, into my personal sphere, because my school was in modified lockdown today - we "needed to practice emergency procedures," at least as far as the students knew. However, there was an additional reason, one that my principal whispered to me outside my classroom door: A local homeless man told his family and minister that he wants to commit "suicide by cop" and is going to make Virginia Tech look like child's play when he is finished with the nearby school. My school will meet as usual tomorrow, provided parents send their kids, but we will continue in modified lockdown mode tomorrow, just for practice.

LynnDel

[Amelia]

Here in Oregon there were two incidents. One about two weeks ago when a teen student shot through the windows of his high school. He was angry at a teacher for calling his mother and discussing his grades among other things. He stated that he had just watched a program about Columbine and decided that since the anniversary of that shooting was coming up, that he would take the same actions. Praise God there were no deaths but many students were injured by flying glass and one student had to undergo surgery to remove shards imbedded in her neck.

Also a threat was made at one of our colleges and it went into lock down. ALl classes canceled. I still havent heard just what the threat was.