If the answers were easy,
we’d have figured it out by now!
Tragedy, eventually, comes to where you live. It never knocks first.
In Madison WI this week before Christmas, this tragic history is still playing out. Three are dead — a teacher and two students, including the shooter by her own hand. Six more children injured, two whose lives are at risk. One other thing we know for sure about the tragedy at Abundant Life Christian School is that Madison public safety professionals performed brilliantly. Emergency services got the call at 10:57 and a Dane County Sheriff’s deputy arrived at the eastside school three minutes later. In another 24 seconds, Madison police arrived. They did not tarry, they went right in heedless of danger — unlike police in Uvalde TX.
Madison’s multiple-agency crisis emergency team was training three miles away; then it responded to the real thing. A reunification center was quickly set up down Buckeye Road at SSM Dean Medical Group East. The clinic shut down its normal appointments to accommodate the parents of the 420 K-12 students. Madison Metro buses shuttled students and staff to the clinic. Ambulances from Madison and neighboring Fitchburg/Verona carried the wounded to medical care.
It was a second-grader who called 911. “Let that sink in a minute,” Police Chief Shon Barnes marveled. UPDATE: PD Chief Barnes said he misread the log, it was a second grade teacher who called.
Chief Barnes was the face of this response; he was visible, in command, authoritative. He and his public information officers briefed the public every three hours or so Monday 12-16-24. Four times in all. Barnes was as thorough as the facts allowed him to be. He expressed the right amount of compassion without sermonizing. Not that anyone wanted this audition, but Barnes may have passed his screen test for that job in Seattle.
Kudos for bringing into a press conference the director of the Office of School Safety at the Department of Justice. Trish Kilpin advised adults to pay attention to signs of distress. Often enough, teenagers give signals if anyone is receptive to them.
“When someone conducts a school shooting, they don’t simply snap,” she said. “Instead, they make a decision and start research and planning toward an act of violence … they often demonstrate observable behaviors that others notice.”
CNN speculated that the 15 year old girl may have been struggling with gender dysphoria like the shooter at a religious school in Kentucky last year. We do know that the teenage years are not all Happy Days. With the onset of puberty, these kids are morphing into something else; they are becoming different people, a stranger to themselves. Acceptance is crucial, from adults and, especially, from peers. Fifteen year olds don’t have the sweep of life experience to weather rejection or other potholes in life’s uncertain road.
There will be those whose bumper stickers read Ban Guns! We are not Second Amendment absolutists but firearms are already forbidden on school grounds and to 15 year olds. Is it practical to herd hundreds of students through metal detectors and airport-level wanding repeatedly throughout the school day?
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Our sympathies to the families of the dead and injured and, if we may say, especially to the parents of the 15-year-old girl responsible, who are triply hurt by their loss, shame, and guilt.
25 responses to “Some compassion is in order today”
Chief Barnes did well. I had a flashback to Larry Kamholz from 20 years ago.
Her manifesto declared that she hated men and thought they all should be killed so that women could remake society from scratch. (Hard to do without some sperm.) WSJ had a full-page editorial listing all the school shootings since Columbine and it is an astounding list. “Something must be done!” they shout. I agree. I just have two rules about a solution: It must be possible to accomplish, and it must be effective in reducing the violent acts, not just make it harder to get a gun. As shooters have demonstrated again and again, they will get their weapon regardless of the law. The Columbine shooters got an older friend to buy their shotguns. They will steal, lie and cheat. They are willing to die for this. They will not be denied.
People will ask how she got the weapon. I want to know why didn’t anybody else know what this 15-year-old girl was THINKING. How can she walk around espousing these psychotic fantasies without somebody saying WAIT A MINUTE, THAT’S CRAZY!!
Where is the manifesto?
See Andy Ngo on X.
I hope you follow up on this Ngo thing Dave. Last thing needed now is the conspiracy nuts showing up.
It was posted in the British tabloid, The Sun this morning, but now it has been taken down. There were also pictures of the girl wearing a KMFDM (Rock band) t-shirt identical to the one Eric Harris (Columbine shooter) wore. And on her father’s FB page (Jeff Rupnow) is a pic of her wearing that t-shirt at a gun range in August of this year. Dad’s bragging how she’s a “pretty good shooter.”
WOW. How can anyone argue with the credibility of that story?
Due to the fact that sources and validity cannot be 100% confirmed, right now, I wouldn’t trust much of what’s being published unless it comes directly from Madison Police Department or the FBI.
Be very skeptical until everything us properly verified.
Here is a good example of how information can change with incidents like this and how details can change as information becomes clearer to authorities. The Madison Police Chief said today that it was NOT a 2nd grade student that called 911, it was a 2nd grade teacher.
“I want to know why didn’t anybody else know what this 15-year-old girl was THINKING.”
DoJ Trish Kilpin correctly noted that you don’t just fall off’n a cliff, you take graduated steps toward it; one would think a teacher might’ve picked up on something or she’d have seen the counselor a time or two.
Anymore about the explosions at the Delaware Blvd dwelling (FF to ~1:00) whose front door was ripped off the hinges?
Think this would be playing out differently if it, as many neighborsnextdoor (THEY Report/YOU Decide) morons were quick to slobber, could be blamed on the toxic masculinity of a white Y-Chromosomal Unit rather than an alleged ROGD sufferer?
The Gotch
Chief Barnes has done a fabulous job. Barnes has handled being thrust into this terrible situation with professionalism, leadership, and compassion.
I see it took Pocan all of 30 seconds to start clamoring for gun control. It took Biden about an hour. Pathetic!
“It was a second-grader who called 911. ‘Let that sink in a minute,’ Police Chief Shon Barnes marveled.”
UPDATE: “Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said a second grade teacher called police at 10:57 a.m. to alert authorities to the shooting at the school, not a second grade student. The call log was misread, Barnes said.” (bolds mine)
Speaking of Barnes, while his leadership has been questioned during his tenure here, his management of yesterday’s tragedy should lay most of that to rest.
But Seattle? Clearly a smart guy, Barnes has to be approaching that with eyes-wide-open. Thing is, no small number of the powers-that-be in his current gig are vocally anti-cop; Freeattle is that…on steroids.
And there’s this: SPD Is Dying: What Seattle Police Officers Are Saying During Exit Interviews
The Gotch
So, was it a teacher or student that called police?
nevermind, my wife cleared it up.
“These kids … are becoming different people, strangers to themselves.” And the process is being shaped more and more by the toxic cesspool that is social media. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the shooter was convinced that she was trans or might be trans, or had trans leanings, and felt ostracized, misunderstood, etc. Just heard on the radio that trans people in Minnesota (!) are arming themselves against the supposed extermination campaign that will be launched against them when Trump takes office. When are parents going to wake up to the fact that their kids’ characters are being shaped by a malignant force that they DO have control over if they would only exercise it. Yes, it’s difficult, but so are a lot of other things that parents need to do to make sure their child doesn’t think that killing his or her classmates and teachers is the answer to their pain and confusion.
Dear Dr. Kriewald; thank you for your enlightened explanation of what is wrong with “these kids.” I have many family members who live in the Twin Cities, and I can say for sure that the trans community is not “arming themselves.” What “surprises me” is your fixation with trans people. Who exactly will be appointed by tRump to run this “extermination campaign? Or is this going to be put under the control of RFK along with his plan to rid us of the horrors of sugared cereals. You didn’t say which radio station you listen too, but I do suggest you change the setting to a station that doesn’t require its listeners to wear tin-foil hats while they are tuned in.
The radio station in question is WPR.
Thanks GW; The Gotch LUVS the sound of a generational imbecile being (heh!) b!tchslapped into the cheap seats!
That’s
Most Trannys are MENTALLY ILL
Funniest thing; MOST LEFTIES are too.
We’re shocked…SHOCKED…said no one!
The Gotch
Tranny’s? Lefties? Mentally Ill? Is this really how you want to continue the discussion about a school shooting? You need to STFU and find a hobby. Said EVERYONE!
Stop trolling the Gotch you gutless troll.
THEN TELL HIM TO STOP TALKING LIKE A MORON STEVE.
Well said, Steve; irredeemably clueless imbeciles have always had a problem with Inconvenient Truth!
The Gotch
The plot thickens: CA Man Arrested For ALLEGEDLY PLOTTING ATTACK With Madison School Shooter
The Gotch