Many are still dealing with the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, that left 17 dead, and others wounded.
The media coverage of the Florida shooting was consuming, and there is not a household in the United States who wasn’t talking about it.
Questions and fears were raised by parents concerning their children’s safety while trying to get their much-needed education.
A worry that did not pass the mind of many who bore witness to last week’s mass murder, was that it would send a wave of influence to other disturbed young individuals throughout the nation.
Dozens of threats a day of violence have been pouring into local law enforcement agencies, many of which were broached on social media outlets.
NPR reported on the statistics of the Educators School Safety Network, where “50 threats a day on average” have been made since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
Just this school year alone the network has found “violent incidents or threats” have occurred in 48 out of the 50 states.
Sadly, many threats are coming from confused young children in elementary schools, one just days later.
ABC News reported:
“A sixth-grade student at Nova Middle School in Davie was arrested Thursday for writing a note, threatening to shoot up the school, authorities said.
Davie police said the 11-year-old girl placed the handwritten note under the assistant principal’s office door, which read: “I will bring a gun to school to kill all of you ugly *** kids and teachers *****. I will bring the gun Feb. 16, 18. BE prepared *****!”
The girl who left the handwritten threatening note was caught on camera and confronted by law enforcement officers.
Police reported the girl was upset when confronted, stating she was made to put the note written by another student under the assistant principle’s door, or she would be made to fight.
The student was apprehended and taken to the Broward Juvenile Assessment Center, according to Local 10 News.
ABC 7 News reported on a threat made through social media on two schools in Northern Virginia:
“A social media post threatening shootings at T. Benton Gayle Middle School and Thornburg Middle School has Stafford and Spotsylvania County sheriff’s deputies investigating the source, it was announced Sunday.
The post quickly spread online on Facebook, Instagram and Stafford Talk, according to officials. In the post, of which ABC7 has obtained a copy, a hand is holding a gun and references having a shooting at both schools.”
Precaution has been taken at both of these schools, where additional deputies have bee stationed on campus. The school districts say they are taking the threats “very seriously.”
Panic has stricken some local caretakers of students from these schools. “I just heard that these kids were threatening to shoot them up,” Caitlin Henderson said. “It scares me. It makes me not want to send my sister to school”, according to ABC 7.
New York Daily News reported Mississippi received over a dozen threats since Cruz took to the halls, with many other states dealing with their share of fear:
“..police in Mississippi have been racing to confront 13 school threats since suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida last Wednesday.”
Another teenager in Lawrence County, Ohio, was arrested around 2 a.m. Thursday for making threats to her high school on Facebook, according to WSAZ.
The station reported that the girl admitted her involvement in a “threatening message.”
Murrah, McLaurin, Pearl and Pearl River high schools in Mississippi all faced threats on Wednesday morning.”
Thankfully, most of the threats and violent acts committed in schools since the Florida shooting have not resulted in the devastation high school students are dealing with after 17 people were brutally killed.
In one instance, law enforcement was able to follow a lead that led to the arrest of a potential murderer, along with confiscation of his arsenal.
NPR reported:
“Last week, two days after the Florida shooting, a school security officer overheard a student threatening to open fire at El Camino High School in Whittier, Calif.
Marino Chavez said he heard a 17-year-old male student say he was “going to shoot up the school sometime in the next three weeks.”
The student claimed it was a joke, but a search of his home turned up two AR-15 rifles, 90 high-capacity magazines and two handguns”
This latest school shooting has given light to the countless number of troubled students who have the pain and capacity to do similar heinous acts.
It, also, gives rise to the question of the media’s influence on impressionable minds as a killer was made infamous overnight, in an awful way.
A majority of the students making threats toward their teachers and peers did not have guns in their possession upon investigation.
Clearly, there are children who have a need to be mentally attended to, in order to find out the troubles behind such hate.
Please discuss in the comments section your thoughts on media coverage of mass murderers, and what you think could prevent a copycat killer in the schools.