So how does this come about? This phenomenon is taking place in and around Texas. Arizona and other parts of the country all now. Each of the linked stories below has happened over the past two weeks. One was yesterday. This trend has not been picked up by the national media and is a huge developing story. Because of privacy laws we are unable to determine if this is race or ethnic group-related. This may be the fallout of over-prescribed Ritalin for all we know.
orangeleader.com (Orange, Texas) – Middle School 6th Grader in Texas Suspended for ‘Hit’ list
A growing and unpleasant trend spreading among area schools continued Tuesday when a hit list was reported at Vidor Middle School.
Two such threatening messages were found at Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School and Mauriceville Elementary last week. Other schools in the Beaumont and Lumberton Independent School Districts have reported hit lists recently. According to Sally Kirkpatrick, director of Community Relations for the Vidor Independent School District, a sixth-grade student has been removed from school by the district’s police department.
Another hit list found in Beaumont Texas. Linked here.
Eight Grader in Arizona suspended for hit list of students.
An eighth grade Surprise student created a “kill list” that included the first names of classmates, law enforcement and school officials said. The school, Ashton Ranch Elementary in the Dysart Unified School District, became aware of the list in late January. A letter from Principal Donna Malone was sent to parents on February 8.
According to the letter, the student “created a list of people to kill” but did not include last names. Malone wrote that made it difficult to pinpoint exact students.
Second boy with another hit list in Arizona linked here.
Camden County, PA girl suspended for developing hit list of students and teachers to kill.
PENNSAUKEN Officials said a student was suspended after the discovery of a ‘hit list’ in a Camden County middle school Tuesday.
Police were called to the Howard M. Phifer Middle School in Pennsauken after a teacher found a notebook containing threatening writing and a list of teachers and students.
Authorities said the notebook belonged to a 13-year-old female 7th grader at the school.
A Wisconsin kill list child enrols in a different school.
A Mount Horeb High School student who was suspended for allegedly creating a “kill list” has enrolled in another school. According to the district administrator, if that student wants to return to Mount Horeb High School, he has fulfilled all the needed requirements and could return to the school.
An alleged plot to cause death and destruction inside two Connecticut high schools was uncovered Wednesday by police. Police said a 16-year-old student planned to use guns and bombs to attack students in Newington and Canton. Police learned of what they call an alleged plot after the student appeared in videos on Youtube.
A girl discovered the videos. Police said they’re grateful for the tip, sparing Newington and Canton from a potential catastrophe.
HEY!!!!!
I don’t know about the rest of you, maybe I’m a psycho… however…
MANY of us HIGH IQ kids WANTED TO BE CLEANSED of the stupid (JOCK) kids that made our high school lives a living hell. They got all the attention, all the funding (for “bounce bounce throw”), and everything else WE REALLY needed (FUNDING for THOUGHT and ROBOTS — not ‘bounce bounce choke’) to excel in college, and make the USA a super-brain-trust again.
Now, we’re outrsourcing THEIR mediocre jobs to the lowest bidder. Meanwhile, we’re ALSO outsourcing OUR high-level jobs to the lowest bidder, because OUR GRADES got short-changed by the athletic programs!!!
How often do you hear/read about athletic programs in India being over-funded, VERSUS over-funded Amerikan programmmmmmas that have nothing to do with REAL productivity”
Crud/crapola,
YO
P.S. I’m EATING my head.
Before the hysteria takes over, just remember that making a list is one thing, but actually killing those on it is quite another
Good points!
I didn’t like many of the students at my high school, nor did I like the faculty, or their programs, or the favoritism provided certain kids.
I also didn’t ever hurt those kids mentally or physically, even though they did their best to bring me down.
The only good news college has taught me is this: those kids will be working for me some day, or in the very least, they will envy my life.
… all because I disregarded their competitive sports, and simply embraced learning things like “economics” and “computer science”…
However, ROB the jock kid will make a good janitor, if he can compete with PEDRO or JUAN..
Now, STFU and don’t reply. Break’s over, and you don’t have time to formulate a good reply…
This is all well and good. But to be honest when I was in high school — and especially grammar school — now called middle school for some marketing reason since nobody teaches grammar anymore (see above) — nobody I know made out kill lists no matter how much they hated things.
Q: WHAT changed?
Could it be long hours of violent video games? Not only the content but the asocial nature of lone play or in small like minded groups.
I seem to remember that I used to fantasise about killing most of my bullying classmates one by one. I did the same in my first job.
No need to worry though, I always spared the nice ones.
This is no big deal. We used to do this too, its just a bit of fun – a “hit list” that a loser makes to live out a little fantasy in their heads about what they “would do” if they had a chance. This is no different to “top 10 celebrities i want to fuck” or “my top ten cure songs, in order”. Lame.
As a 30 year old, I still suffer the consequences of being bullied in grade school. It has affected me psychologically as much as my mom and dad (dad, who I haven’t seen since) divorcing when I was 8 years old. Bullying is a huge problem in schools and with the availability of weapons, it is a ticking time bomb. I know it is not politically correct, but I don’t blame the shooters, I blame society for accepting bullying as a right of passage.
When I was at school (I have a long memory!) it was the teachers we wanted to kill, not each other!
7,
Top ten cure songs… IN ORDER? God that’s lame! I’d kick your ass all over the hallway and jam you in a locker until the next day!
If you would have said the Smiths, well, that’s another story!
This entire issue is insane. We have forgotten that our children are not born with morals, ethics, and understanding, it must be taught. We ignore our children in the company of caregivers and the ubiquitous TV, and then blame them instead of ourselves for the resulting mess.
Children are not meant to be forced to sit quietly for hours at a time absorbing rote information so they can save the teacher’s job by passing the mandated test. They should be given outlets for their energy, not drugged to forget they are only children.
There are of course problems at both ends of the scale. Highly-managed playtime breeds dependence, and using the PS2 or TV as an ersatz parent sucks ass. But it seems we have forgotten how to be parents. (Or maybe never properly learned?)
Our schools exacerbate the issue by punishing instead of correcting, treating 10-year-olds who give their friend an asprin like a drug dealer or suspending them for finding a squirt gun in their backpack. Childhood was never a picnic, and we’ve turned it into prison.
Then we wonder why our children are seething cauldrons of hate, rage, and pain.
As I think back, I could have sworn that I probably made a list of people I hated back in grade school. Why didn’t I kill them? What’s changed?
Respect, responsibility and reprocussions are three “Rs” that aren’t being taught to children anymore. If parents weren’t so afraid of being parents and teachers weren’t so afraid of the parents, maybe we wouldn’t be having all these problems.
As several others have mentioned, bullying is a factor in many, if not most, of these types of incidents. If schools want to end violent retaliation then they need to end the bullying that feeds it.
Bullying is a problem common to many cultures. It’s just the response that society-specific.
Kids bullied in Japan commit suicide. Kids bullied in the US kill the bullies. What’s the problem?
#15, huskergirl,
Violence is everywhere for kids to witness, especially in their own homes. We like to blame the media and violent video games, but the single biggest influence on a child’s attitude toward violence is their family.
I disagree. There has been violence in homes since time began. The concept of violence in schools has been a relative recent affair, mostly over the past 20 years.
I attribute violence in schools to the abundance of violence on TV, the availability of weapons, the heightened emphasis on inter-school sports, and the insistence of keeping kids in school much longer. Add to this mix #11, Smartalix’s post. There isn’t one cause of school violence, it is a combination and too often the end result of prior violence.
I don’t want to denigrate domestic violence. It is ugly, wrong, and destructive. I just believe it has minimal effect on bullying and violence in schools.
Mr. Fusion, you are correct about violence on TV, weapon availability, and jock worship as influences on violent behavior. I failed to point out that these ARE important factors. I simply believe that these issues alone do not cause violent behavior in kids. Domestic violence is the underlying source combined with violent media, weapons, jock worship, acceptance of bullying, etc.
Domestic violence is the fire that has always been burning, violent media is the barrel of gasoline tossed into the fire.
#7: “Twenty years ago a “hit list” was no big deal because kids weren’t shooting their teachers and classmates.”?
Yes they were. Have you heard the song “I don’t like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats? Okay maybe they’re not big in America, but it was a song about a real-life schoolgirl who opened fire on her classmates. And that was a long, long time ago.
When I was in school we were targeting the teachers… Not the ether students. But then I was sent to a… school for troubled boys… early on.
Its funny i have a lot of nostalgic memories of that place now.
#15, 16, 17 – You’re pointing out that violence is now the medium we all swim in. There was some discussion here recently of whether shows like “24” desensitize their viewers to torture, but shows like that are just a subset of the larger violence that surrounds us all the time. How often did Jack Webb actually draw down on someone in “Dragnet”? Now think about the huge praises heaped on movies like “Kill Bill” and “Pulp Fiction.”
I don’t think we can blame video games, movies, TV shows – maybe they’re just reflections of the culture, a troubling thought – but I bet if the media violence were cranked back a bit, and yes if we stopped drugging any kid who shows signs of too much creativity or dietary sugar, we might just see the cultural rage drop back a bit.
Wow. I remember when “Clockwork Orange” was considered shocking. We’re in some sort of positive feedback loop, and it does seem to me the loop needs to be broken. Damned if I know how, though.
#21,
The rape scene in Clockwork Orange is still quite disturbing to me, and i’m a man. Go back and watch it again, time has not mellowed that scene at all. Most of what we see in modern movies is cartoon violence. That is, it is either bloodless, like Lord of the Rings, or blood is used for comedic effect, Kill Bill. I think realistic depections of violence are hard to come by in modern film making.. Well outside of the world war 2 genra anyhow.
#19 – I agree that a lot of parents simply don’t make the time to be a parent, but I’ve also witnessed many parents who are truly afraid of being the “bad guy” when it comes to disciplining their kids and teaching them respect. Johnny acts badly, mother/father just laughs it off.
I think another aspect of this problem is the media. Whenever a kid goes off and shoots 4 or 5 of his classmates in some rural high school halfway across the US, the media is all over it. Troubled, bullied children will inevitably hear about it. Bullied children often feel like they’re insignificant and not being heard. When they see the attention that’s given to the psycho student who flipped out and killed his classmates, thus begins the idea.
I’m not saying this is the root cause, but think like a kid for once and it might make sense.
This is exactly what would have happened 40 years ago if the police had microphones in every kid’s bedroom, or taps on their phones, or read everyone’s diaries. Murder plots everywhere. “Threats” of heinous rampages throughout their towns.
The difference between then and now is twofold: we now live in a police state, and we are hysterical cowards.
The kids who posted this stuff were too young to internalize the above facts. They, like those kids 40 years ago, thought they were privately blowing off steam. Now they know to never write things down, never joke, always be aware that fear-crazed police are watching you every minute that they are able. But heir lives are ruined anyway, so maybe they won’t care.
ummm, at risk of being flamed by the right-wing and the pro-gun clans:
IT’S THE GUNS!!!
Hate and rage have been around a long time. High-powered firearms, not as long. This crap happens in Canada and Britain too – but not **nearly** as often as in the U.S.
#22 – Then you haven’t seen Smokin’ Aces. VERY graphic.
Perhaps the reason why Clockwork Orange still affects you is because you may not have been raised in a society where images of violence are as prevalent as they are today. That’s not a cut on you, just throwing that out there. After all, I’m in the same boat with you on the Clockwork Orange scene.
#25 – I’ll only say this: I completely disagree.
Those of you who have read my posts should be shocked at my restraint. 😉
Forty years, ago kids were killing classmates with guns. They were doing it 140 years ago. Their parents wigged out and killed occasionally as well. I’d say there was a hell of a lot more of that in the past than in the present, PER CAPITA. A lot more rapes and robberies as well, PER CAPITA. Crime isn’t measured by the raw numbers of acts, but sanely, by the percentage of people that acually commit them.
And these kids were just writing, anyway. That isn’t a crime, and fantasizing about killing your persecutors is something every wedgie victim engages in. Of course, it’s a new month, and thinking may be a crime now; it’s hard to keep up with the madness.
The difference between those times and ours? Hysterical fear fanned by “news” corporations that know fear sells, baby. And a police state that is seeking reasons for its continued existence. The more surveillance, the more “crime” you find, the more police state you need. Endless cycle, endless profit.
#16
You claim that violence in school is a relatively recent affair, but that is quite wrong. It has allways existed in school, the main difference is that now is the time period when the so called hippies of the 60’s are old and respected (since it is, socailly accepted to respect old people). Their opinions on violence get a shitload of attention, and thus even child’s play violence (such as pinching, as seen on Dvorak.org/blog) is ridiculed as unacceptable, thus kids who are slightly bullied grow to believe that thats not how the world works, and instead believe that the billie is the reincarnation of the devil, and go on major rampages. That, and kids growing stupidity and lack of creativity in murder. Whythefuck would you rampage someone when you can do things quietly?
Basic point: overreact, much?
#1 && #8 have good points, but i think we should blame social networking sites like myspace
I and my friends were also bullied a LOT in grade school, but in highschool i helped take the fight to them (the jocks) – we (geeks, stoners) belittled their stupid sports, wrote insulting poems and posted them everywhere, and managed to get the majority of the lower grades on our side (through peer-based respect, not beatings) – by the time I graduated highschool, the rule through fear and intimidation was history.
It could very well have gone the other way, there were guns and knives available to everyone (growing up in a small town in the mountains has that effect) – but i and my compatriots saw the problems with the violence route, and avoided it.
Everyone read #11 again. Everything you need to know is in there. I’m only 27 and when I was in High School, you never heard of anything like this. Every few years it gets worse. Media, marketing, TV. It’s all to blame in some way or another. Elementary kids today are exposed to things that people now in their 30’s wouldn’t have been subjected to until they were in middle school or even high school.