Shooting at a Cleveland high school

[Raineyrocks]

(CNN) -- A 14-year-old gunman shot students and teachers at a Cleveland high school, wounding four, and was then killed, the mayor told CNN affiliates WOIO and WKYC.
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An ambulance stands outside SuccessTech Academy in Cleveland, Ohio.
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It was not known if police shot the gunman or if he took his own life.

The shooting victims include two adult men, 57 and 42 years old; and two teenage males, 17 and 14 years old, according to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. A 14-year-old female hurt her knee in the chaos, he added.

Two students were taken to hospitals, said Andrea Jackson, press secretary for Cleveland's mayor.

One was taken out of the school on a stretcher but was conscious. Video Watch parents rush to the site of the shooting »

The teens are in "stable" condition, according to Jackson. He described the adults' conditions as "slightly elevated" above that of the students.

Witnesses told WKYC that the 14-year-old gunman was upset about being suspended for fighting earlier this week. He came to the school Wednesday with a gun in each hand and began firing.

Students said they took cover in closets after the school principal announced a "Code Blue" on the intercom.

The gunman was described by fellow students as "odd."

SuccessTech is a nontraditional high school, according to local school officials.

"Since it is a specialty school," it doesn't have "the typical population of a large high school," said Lisa Matthews of the superintendent's office.

It is a "school of choice" -- students have to apply to get in, said Ruthie Williams, also of the superintendent's office. She said classrooms are on the first and third floors of the four-story building and the rest contains the school district's administrative offices.

Cleveland fire, police and EMS are at the scene.
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The academy describes itself on its Web site as a "small, nontraditional high school that provides a learning environment in which all student believe in their ability to succeed."


   

[Braddogg]

 

[Raineyrocks]

I know, it's getting to be an everyday event with people going nuts and shooting others.  I'll try to find something funny just for you to cheer you up, give me a few minutes and I'll come up with a joke thread.
I know it doesn't change all of this sad/bad crap but maybe it will just make you laugh even if it's only for a minute.

[OnGard4Liberty]

Another reason to be armed...actually an example of the same reason: to protect yourself and your family.

[dan_sayers]

it's getting to be an everyday event with people going nuts and shooting others.

No! That's what anti's say to push their agenda. It doesn't happen every day. The other thing they don't tell you is that it wasn't happening much at all before we designated school as no resistance gun free zones.

For those unaware of Ohio's climate, Cleveland's Mayor Jackson has been going out of his way and out of his power in an attempt to punish the law-abiding. Crime in his city is on the rise because he's blaming everybody but the guilty. Earlier in the year, we finally received reaffirmed statewide pre-emption of firearms laws. He's been on the rampage towards that as well. I can't wait to see how he tries to pass new laws and change all the rules BUT the one that made the assailant know for sure he would meet no resistance.

I've always been a sucker for actual links with news stories, so here it is for others: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/10/cleveland.shooting/index.html

[KBCraig]

Yet more victims of "gun-free" ( ) zones.

[kola]

...I agree with Dan and would like to mention how many of these kid killers are on doctor scripted ritalin and other pyschotrophic mind altering pharmacueticals.

This country is a mess and school violence is another reason to homeschool your kids. Have homebirths and do not register your children to state and federal slavery. Government mind controlled schools are destroying young kids.

Kola

[MTPorcupine3]

Another reason to be armed...actually an example of the same reason: to protect yourself and your family.

Another reason not to have government schools.

[David]

Yet more victims of "gun-free" ( ) zones.

It is more of a gun free city, at least in the politicians wet dreams. 
I hate to blame the victims, but I do wonder if they were tormentors of this kid.  Schools these days are virtual prisons, they just look nicer.  In any group large enough, there is going to be people that snap. 
It is a tragedy either way.   

[ThePug]

I hate to blame the victims, but I do wonder if they were tormentors of this kid.

As a high school junior at a public school, I can say without reservation that all this nonsense about kids being "bullied", "abused", or "tormented" is absolute crap. The state (AR) mandates these "anti-bullying" signs be plastered everywhere, and they're a joke. I can't recall a single instance of a student at my school actually getting in trouble for "bullying".

The stereotypical image of the poor loner being tormented by the "popular kids" is a myth. There are certainly kids who tend to keep to themselves, and kids who have odd or even under-developed social habits, but they're not "tormented". They're mostly just left alone, which is usually what they want. I've been one of those "loners" before, and while it's certainly not a healthy thing for a teenager to do, and I don't doubt that it can cause problems in some kids, it is almost always self-inflicted. It's not something that's forced on kids by their peers.

This all started when the media fabricated a story about how the Columbine shooters were "bullied", when by all accounts they were in fact abusive and confrontational themselves. It's another example of media-fueled "common wisdom" that is 100% unsubstantiated BS.

[Braddogg]

Pug, your experience at your high school is not everyone's experience at every high school.  I was fortunate enough to be in a school culture where things were pretty much as you describe them, but I know people for whom that was not the experience.

[David]

In an environment that you can't leave, you can't find alternatives, and where you are virtually forced to do whatever they tell you to do.  I don't believe for a moment that bullying doesn't exist.  All that tension, with little release does not effect everyone equally.  Some regress, and others become violent.  Not everyone is a target.  And not everyone is a bully.  But it does go on.  Again, I hate to blame the victims, but I know it does happen. 

[ThePug]

I'm telling you, in my experience, "bullying" is blown way out of proportion. The idea of the sadistic bully tormenting the poor, awkward loner is an object of ridicule for both students and teachers in all my experience. I'm not saying it never happens, of course, but that it's hardly the epidemic some portray it as.

What does happen is the sort of self-imposed separation from society that I mentioned. There's plenty of that, though they're generally ignored by everyone else rather than bullied. This is something that is extremely unhealthy, and I have no doubt that it can cause serious problems. But it's not this "failure of society" stuff so much as it is an internal problem for the kid in question.

I know public schools experience can vary widely, and at some schools there certainly are problems with violence and such. I'm just talking about the typical, middle-class, (and yes, predominantly white) schools that these shootings always seem to happen at.

[dan_sayers]

Pug, count your blessings. Because you're in high school, you need to keep in mind that you haven't seen everything and certainly that just because you haven't, it doesn't necessarily NOT exist. It IS real and I've been through it.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I know, it's getting to be an everyday event with people going nuts and shooting others. 

Lots of different colors and shapes, Several genders, 4000 religions, Hundreds of Nationalities, 300,000,000 different opinions, 200,000,000 plus guns.  I would say, that on the whole, we get along pretty well.