The Seriousness of Uttering Threats and Violence in School

I hear in the news all the time about kids uttering and/or writing threats. At one time, it was not taken very seriously but now with all the school shootings it is. Some people cannot believe it when they say there has been a school shooting; most people think that it is done by a teen with some problems but not always.

There was a case in the USA (December 1, 1997) about Michael Carneal who went to church was in a youth group was getting good grades didn’t cause any trouble at school but he had uttered threats and nobody believed that he would do anything like that. Then one day he went to school shot and killed three, injured five. Some of these kids where good friends of his. (People said he was a good kid).

The sheriff’s office was told in 1997 about the sites that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had, and the death threats used towards students and teachers. It was not taken very seriously so nothing was done. (April 20, 1999) they went on a shooting spree killing 12, injuring 24. If it had been taken more seriously and investigated more, no one would have been hurt. They were known in school as the trench coat mafia (People said they where bad kids).

It is still a threat whether it is written or spoken. If it is written, you still cannot tell if it is a joke, as is the case with the 15-year-old boy from Hudson, Quebec (September 18, 2006) he wrote death threats toward the students in the school. Some people went to police after hearing about the threats that where posted on vampirefreaks.com. He told the police that he did not mean what he wrote on the site. However, under further investigation they decided to charge him as they thought he probably would follow threw on the threats.

The most recent was (October 10, 2007) students said he had been uttering threats towards them. He had been suspended from school until an investigation could be done a week later he came to school and shot 4 injuring them.

This is why you cannot tell if the person is joking or being serious. You can’t look at a person and say that they will follow threw on a threat or not, you can’t do it by behaviour either because there are some people that you would look at and see their behaviour and say that they differently would follow threw with the threats and others that you would say no way would they follow threw with their threats.

When police officers are called in they cannot determine if the threats are serious or not with out investigating it, because they do not want to dismiss it and then be called over to the school by responding to a 911 call about a shooting at the school. Therefore, it is better for all concerned if it’s taken seriously until proven otherwise.

People can be joking around with friends and someone can over hear them and not know that it is a joke. Or your friendship might end in a bad way. They hear that you are making threats toward them and think that you might be serious now and report it. There are reports now of kids who are uttering or writing threats towards students and teachers because they said that they wanted to see the reaction on there faces but that they would not do anything like that.

Even today, there are still kids uttering and/or writing threats. Now the police are called in to investigate to see which ones are possible to follow threw and which ones will not follow threw. There are more kids who write threats on the internet and think nothing of it until a parent finds out about it and goes and reports it to the police then they find out how serious it is taken now. No one wants to take any chances.

These are a very few cases about why you should not utter and/or write threats it is a very serious thing not something funny. There are family’s now missing someone or having to deal with a serious injury, students and teachers now afraid to be in schools because they don’t know when or if it could happen again. Every time they hear about kids uttering threats or kids going to school and shooting people, they can feel their pain and know what they are going threw. It seems that everyone is paranoid now a days.

I learned through this process that there are big consequences for saying and/or writing things that are or may be taken as threats. I have learned that making a threat is not a good thing even if you are joking because some people will take it serious, that people will look at you differently because they don’t know if you will follow threw, people will stop hanging around with you thinking if they make you mad you might make threats towards them. I also learned not to trust anyone, because if they are mad or just faking liking you and you say something they do not like they can report you. It is better to be careful with what you say and how you say it because they might not think the way; you do or know how you think. Or if you write it down as a way to let your anger out they might not know that you write as a way to let your anger out and would never harm a person.

There are big consequences for making threats. If I had been charged I could have got jail time, paid a fine, been put on probation. With a criminal record I couldn’t travel to other countries because they will see that I was charged with uttering threats and I would not be allowed in their country, it would be hard to get a job because some applications ask if you have a criminal record, you can’t get into a few colleges as an adult student as they ask the same question, it could hurt any future relationships as at some point in time I would have to tell that person about being charged and they might not understand why I would have done this.

I seen a timeline about school shootings starting from 1996 to five days ago. After years went by school shootings decreased. I think it’s because everyone’s taking uttering threats even more seriously then before and not taking any chances.