Shooting at Ohio High School: One Dead, Four Injured

[Eredar Warlock]

Suspect In Custody After 1 Student Killed, 4 Wounded In Shooting At Ohio High School | Fox News

URGENT: One student was killed and five were wounded during a shooting early Monday at an Ohio high school, authorities said. A suspect, whose name has not been released, is in police custody.

Civil deputy Erin Knife with the Geauga County Sheriff's Office said the shooting was reported around 7:30 a.m. Monday at Chardon High School.

The suspected gunman, believed to be a student, fled the school on foot and was later apprehended after turning himself in. Authorities have not released the juvenile's name because he has not been charged yet.

Law enforcement officials said earlier that three of the shooting victims are in critical condition, while one victim is in stable condition. The victims have not yet been identified.

The situation is under control and an FBI SWAT team is on the scene, police said.

A parent waiting outside the school told the station that her daughter sent her a text message, saying the shooting took place inside the cafeteria.

Another student reported hearing a total of five shots fired, the station reported.

Student Heather Ziska, who was just feet away when the gunman opened fire, said a normal morning was interrupted by strange sounds in a hallway, then the sight of the gunman beginning to shoot.

The 17-year-old junior said she and other students began hearing popping noises in a nearby hallway. Ziska said she then saw a boy with a gun who she recognized as a fellow student come into the cafeteria and start shooting.

She said she and several others immediately ran outside, while other friends ran into a middle school and others locked themselves in a teachers' lounge.

The wounded students were reportedly airlifted to local hospitals.

The 1,100-student high school is about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

Click for more on the shooting from Fox 8

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Five cookies says the shooter was a selfish prick who was bullied a bunch and couldn't figure out how to deal with it and had no regard for other human lives just like everyone else who pulls this kind of crap.

 

[Bulletproof Scales]

Probably another kid riddled with first-world-problems like a hard time making friends and nobody seeing how special you are. High school can be a rough time, you know...

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

School shootings have become so predictable don't you think? I will be amazed if a youth had a unique reason why he/she acted crazy.

 

[Dorothy]

Who the fuck cares what the motive was? the fact remains that one person is currently dead as a result of this, and several others have been wounded. The reason the shooter did what they did is not as important as this fact.

 

[Naoto]

Im from Ohio. I pass that school everyday when i ride on the bus to mine.... My dad used to work there and i have freinds who go there.... Im not even directly involved but im shaken to the point where i have tears running down my face as onto my keyboard as i type... May your thoughts and prayers be with the wounded and fallen.... Out of respect for Chardon High try to wear red.... It was the school color...

 

[Lilac Hill]

Five cookies says the shooter was a selfish prick who was bullied a bunch and couldn't figure out how to deal with it and had no regard for other human lives just like everyone else who pulls this kind of crap.

Ten anti-gun control rallies says that the US will never introduce an obviously necessary law.

 

[Eredar Warlock]

Five cookies says the shooter was a selfish prick who was bullied a bunch and couldn't figure out how to deal with it and had no regard for other human lives just like everyone else who pulls this kind of crap.

Ten anti-gun control rallies says that the US will never introduce an obviously necessary law.

The Constitution says no.

 

[Luminosity]

The article in the first post has been updated, 2 more students have died as a result of their injuries

 

[Lilac Hill]

Five cookies says the shooter was a selfish prick who was bullied a bunch and couldn't figure out how to deal with it and had no regard for other human lives just like everyone else who pulls this kind of crap.

Ten anti-gun control rallies says that the US will never introduce an obviously necessary law.

The Constitution says no.

I'm sure the founding fathers would be proud of your noble quest to facilitate continued school shootings.

 

[Karisse]

I'm sure the founding fathers would be proud of your noble quest to facilitate continued school shootings.

Thing is, guns don't necessarily lead to school shootings. What leads to school shootings is troubled children who don't get the help/therapy/etc they need. If you ban guns, they will find another way to commit violent acts on school grounds.

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

I'm sure the founding fathers would be proud of your noble quest to facilitate continued school shootings.

Guns don't kill people; people who use them do.

 

[Bikini Miltank]

I'm about as far from pro-gun as you can get; I was born in a country that doesn't share the US's deep and abiding love of firearms. But despite my position on the issue of gun availability, whenever something like this happens I can't help but feel that the anti-gun side of the debate drastically oversimplifies the issue to support their side (which, in turn, prompts the pro-gun lobby to turn up with its own oversimplifications).

Easy availability of guns is part of the reason things like this happen, but it is not the sole reason or even the main one. Consider that there are other countries with high gun ownership that don't have this problem to anywhere near the same extent. There must be something else going on that is driving kids to do this; something unique to - or at least very common in - the US.

And while I wouldn't pretend to know what this is, it does seem that the US has a very serious bullying problem, so that is likely part of it. But I think there's more to it than that - a very peculiar phenomenon that I have encountered much more from Americans than I did in the UK: blaming the victim.

It's the victim of bullying who is expected to put things right, and who is berated for making the wrong choice. Take a look at any thread involving bullied teens committing suicide, and what will you frequently find? Not sadness that we as a society ballsed-up so badly that a young person chose to end their life rather than face another day, but blame, blame, blame. "He was weak." "Anyone who does that is pathetic." "He should have manned up and done something about it." An analysis of what a fool the victim was, rather than, say, calling for something to be done about the bullying that triggered it. We are told that we must accept bullying as a fact of life and that it's useless to do anything about it. It's every kid for themselves.

So, here's a thought experiment. Imagine you take a bullied, depressed, frightened and near-suicidal teen going through the most emotionally-wearing years of his life, and instead of offering sympathy and support, you tell him to "man up and do something about it." What might some of the potential outcomes be?

We don't offer support to bullied teens, we refuse to recognize bullying as a real problem, and we perpetuate the notion that the bullied must have brought it on themselves: it is shameful to be bullied and it's even more shameful to be emotionally affected by it. Those kids who kill themselves? Weak! Pussies! Pathetic!

Indeed, we either excuse bullying as a fact of life, or even celebrate it as character-building. We rarely hold the actual bullies responsible. Instead, we blithely instruct bullied kids to stand up to the bullies, ignoring the fact that standing up to individuals who are bigger, tougher and more experienced in being an asshole than you is neither practical or safe. But hey, for the kid at the end of his tether with thoughts of inadequacy and suicide, a gun is a great equalizer.

There's a weird irony that the pro-gun folks who are keen to pin the blame for these shootings on anything, anything other than the availability of guns are frequently the very same people who refuse to see bullying as a problem and dismiss those who committed suicide as weak and pathetic.

Well, if you want to believe that bullying is just a "fact of life" that kids should get used to, then you're going to have to accept shootings like these as another fact of life.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

@Bikini Miltank

If there was some sort of program that converted a large amount of sadistic pricks into sensible people, that would be fantastic. But that's not the only way of dealing with the problem. Yes, it's a perfectly fine way of tackling the issue, but a lot of times it's just more practical to go to the person who's fallen victim and try to help them, instead of going to the person who caused the problem and give them what they deserve. To be blunt, the worst bullies are the worst because they're the strongest. If there was a strong/crafty person with a head on their shoulders who could actually help give them what for while the other sensible people in the student crowd help out the victim elsewhere, that's awesome. But the sad fact is that there aren't a lot of those people. Some sort of program that convinced the stronger/craftier kids in the crowd to deal with the cause of the problem while the others dealt with the target of the cause (or do both) would be fantastic, but until we get more kids who want to help out that can actually give the cause of the problem a run for their money (or teachers with enough sense to give them what they deserve), the more practical solution to the problem is learning, and teaching others, to cope with it.

 

[Insanish Danish]

The article does say that this kid wasn't bullied. A tragedy all the same, either way. I feel so sorry for these kids' parents.

 

[Dorothy]

Five cookies says the shooter was a selfish prick who was bullied a bunch and couldn't figure out how to deal with it and had no regard for other human lives just like everyone else who pulls this kind of crap.

Ten anti-gun control rallies says that the US will never introduce an obviously necessary law.

You seem to be under the impression that this child was able to obtain his firearm legally.

 

[moosie]

Dang, that's too close... I pray for all of the families affected by this shooting. I just wish that kid would've just never picked up the gun, but nothing can be done about that now. I hope no more shootings arise because of this...

 

[Chaotic Inferno]

So much shootings in high school happening....though, Jaime's was the first one I heard about before all these others started happening, early January, before all these others stared happening..

 

[Green Zubat]

Five cookies says the shooter was a selfish prick who was bullied a bunch and couldn't figure out how to deal with it and had no regard for other human lives just like everyone else who pulls this kind of crap.

What a thoughtless, reductionist attitude. I agree with Bikini MIltank, too often there's almost a sense from some people (illustrated perfectly by the quote above) that the horrible acts emotionally/mentally unhinged people commit shows a sort of weakness of character that implies they deserved to be bullied/abused all along. Ironically, this kind of attitude is exactly what drives these people to do such things. Society essentially condemns them for doing exactly what they've been conditioned to do.

I also agree that this preponderance towards blame seems especially great in the US, demonstrated by US media. Many books and TV shows with a high school setting share the theme that high school is a natural hell and bullying has its own special role there, that it shouldn't be stopped and you just have to suck it up until graduation. This appears in sharp contrast in British schools, which (in both the media and real life) tend to see bullying as an aberration.

I think one factor in preventing such shootings is for schools to take a more aggressive, intolerant stance to bullying. Another, more obvious one would be place greater restriction on the ownership of arms. Whilst it could be said that this would be unconstitutional, and it would, I don't see anything inherently wrong with that. The constitution can be changed, after all, and in some cases I think it should. Some would also argue that if unhinged kids want to do some damage they still could in other ways, but I would counter that at least you're restricting them to less lethal weapons, like knives.

@Bikini Miltank

If there was some sort of program that converted a large amount of sadistic pricks into sensible people, that would be fantastic. But that's not the only way of dealing with the problem. Yes, it's a perfectly fine way of tackling the issue, but a lot of times it's just more practical to go to the person who's fallen victim and try to help them, instead of going to the person who caused the problem and give them what they deserve. To be blunt, the worst bullies are the worst because they're the strongest. If there was a strong/crafty person with a head on their shoulders who could actually help give them what for while the other sensible people in the student crowd help out the victim elsewhere, that's awesome. But the sad fact is that there aren't a lot of those people. Some sort of program that convinced the stronger/craftier kids in the crowd to deal with the cause of the problem while the others dealt with the target of the cause (or do both) would be fantastic, but until we get more kids who want to help out that can actually give the cause of the problem a run for their money (or teachers with enough sense to give them what they deserve), the more practical solution to the problem is learning, and teaching others, to cope with it.

Exactly what I was saying above - "bullying is natural, kids should be taught to toughen up and cope with it". Lets not, you know, try to put a stop to it altogether.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

What a thoughtless, reductionist attitude. I agree with Bikini MIltank, too often there's almost a sense from some people (illustrated perfectly by the quote above) that the horrible acts emotionally/mentally unhinged people commit shows a sort of weakness of character that implies they deserved to be bullied/abused all along. Ironically, this kind of attitude is exactly what drives these people to do such things. Society essentially condemns them for doing exactly what they've been conditioned to do.

I never said he deserved to be bullied. But it's his fault he didn't learn to cope with it. Call me a thoughtless twat, but dealing with it is a good way to help stop it.

As for "this kind of attitude is what drives people to do these things": I'm not the one constantly berating and harming him for no reason, his bullies are. I did direct insults at him, obviously, but that's because he shot up a high school and is directly responsible for the deaths of I believe 3 or 4 people. I'm not the same as the sadistic pricks who drove him to think this was the answer. He messed up, big time.

Exactly what I was saying above - "bullying is natural, kids should be taught to toughen up and cope with it". Lets not, you know, try to put a stop to it altogether.

Did I ever say that people shouldn't try to stop it? No, I just said that it was easier to learn to and teach others to cope with it. Which it is. People who are able to help put a stop to the problem that fundementally causes all of this should by all means do what they can. Quit twisting my words.