My most in your face moment with a school shooter happened on May 21, 1998. We were living in Eugene, Oregon at the time and on that morning the news erupted with a shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon. Only the interstate separated Springfield and Eugene. My daughter had friends who went to Thurston High School. We were friends with their parents.
On May 20, a young man named Kip Kinkel was kicked out of school for having a firearm in his locker.
He went home and, at approximately 3 p.m., shot and killed his father, a teacher, once in the back of the head. He wrapped his body in a shower curtain and hid it in the bathroom.
At about 6:30 p.m. he met his mother in the garage. She was also a teacher. He told her he loved her, then shot her twice in the head, three times in the face, and once in the heart. He then spent the night in the family home with his dead parents.
The next morning, on May 22, he took five weapons and 1127 rounds of ammunition and hid them under a trench coat. He opened fire as he reached the commons area at the high school. He fired 50 rounds, hitting on 37 of those shots and killing two students.
When he stopped to reload, several students led by football player Jacob Ryker charged and subdued Kinkel. Kinkel was sentenced to 111 years without parole.
Every year in May, I research and find out if Kinkel is still in prison and am grateful when I find out he is.
Talking with Lt.
Christopher Kilpatrick, PCSO and D70 Director of student services Bob DiPietro over the last two weeks about training and preparation for an active shooter in D70 schools was more than an academic exercise for me. It was a 25-year-old memory, poked with a stick.
I was impressed. I was impressed with the fact that the PCSO isn’t going to wait until every lawman in the county shows up before they do anything. While they wait for everyone, people die.
If you are at the school and you are a law enforcement officer you are going in, and your one and only purpose is to get the shooter and end any additional loss of life.
You are not there to help the injured, you are not there to direct traffic, you are there to stop the killing.
I was impressed with the communication system D70 has in place that has predated many school shootings but makes communication in an emergency simple and easy.
Although most of it has been updated, and all of it still works, the plan is to update the few schools where it has not been updated.
Communication is so important.
I asked Kirkpatrick what he thought about teachers who wanted to carry firearms, doing so. He indicated vigorously that his answer was not department affiliated at all but only personal opinion, and he didn’t have a problem with it.
He did say that proper training was a must and did think most people weren’t cut out for facing an active shooter surrounded by bodies of veritable babies. He did say he thought it was a deterrent for it to be known that someone MIGHT have a gun.
I was impressed with the fact that many, many people (like detention officers) were trained, and trained, and trained again. That signage was everywhere in schools giving information about what to do in multiple types of events. That it was viewed as very important.
Both men seemed to have a perfect balance of preparation without panic or paranoia.
There are no winners in an active shooter event. But D70 and PCSO seem to be determined to keep the losers to a minimum. And trust me, I fear there might be more Kip Kinkel’s out there.