Deadly School Shooting Raises Some Familiar Questions
March 5, 2001 (Santee, Calif.) -- A student, reportedly with a smile on his face, went on a shooting rampage at his high school on Monday, killing two people and wounding 14 others.
Officials say a male freshman was taken into custody at Santana High School.
Student John Schardt said he was in a nearby classroom when the shooting started at about 9:20 a.m. in a nearby boys room.
Andrew Kaforey, a 17-year-old Santana senior, said he ran into the bathroom with a security guard after hearing what sounded like a firecracker or a gunshot.
"He pointed the gun right at me, but he didn't shoot," Kaforey said. As he and the guard ran out, the suspect shot the guard in the back, Kaforey said.
Over the past few years, as these shocking incidents seem to be happening more frequently, schools have asked for help in trying to identify who might be capable of committing such crimes before they happen.
But last fall, the FBI reported that such identification is no easy task. After studying the details of 18 other school shootings and attempted attacks, its researchers could not create a shooter profile and found that there are no warning signs that a person actually will go on to commit a violent act like this shooting.
But the FBI concluded that schools should be paying attention to the "leakage," piecing together gossip, emails, and other communications to try to assess the threat someone poses, then try to intervene accordingly.
The report also suggested that schools form an intervention team that could assess threats and be able to act by getting help from counselors, healthcare providers, or legal resources.
Many in the Santana community tell reporters that before the incident, the suspect had said many things about guns and shooting people.
Neil O'Grady, 15, said the suspect had talked to him and other friends over the weekend about a shooting at the school, but they didn't believe him.
"He was telling us how he was going to bring a gun to school ... but we thought he was joking," O'Grady said. "We were like, 'Yeah, right.'"