Some blame violence in the media -- and even sue over it

By Tustin Amole
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

It can't happen here. And then it does.

Springfield, Ore.; Fayetteville, Tenn.; Edinboro, Pa.; Jonesboro, Ark.; West Paducah, Ky.

And now Littleton.

Kids shooting kids. At school. A place where they expect to be safe.

Experts say school violence is on the rise. But when you ask why, the answers are almost as varied as the places.

"No one knows who 'those kids,' the kinds of kids who do this, are," said Tim Schlenvogt, president of Colorado Secondary School Principals.

SCHOOL SHOOTINGS 1999 -April 16:L A high school sophomore fires two shotgun blasts in a school hallway in Notus, Idaho. No injuries. 1998: -May 21: A 15-year-old boy is accused of opening fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore. Two teen-agers are fatally shot and more than 20 people are hurt. The teen's parents are found slain at their home. He is awaiting trial. -May 19: Three days before his graduation, an 18-year-old honor student allegedly opens fire in a parking lot at a high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. He is awaiting trial. -April 24: A science teacher is shot to death in front of students at an eighth-grade graduation dance in Edinboro, Pa. A 14-year-old student awaits trial. -March 24: Four girls and a teacher are killed and 10 people are wounded during a false fire alarm at a middle school in Jonesboro, Ark., when two boys, 11 and 13, open fire from the woods. Both are convicted in juvenile court of murder and may be held up to age 21. 1997 -Dec. 1: Three students are killed and five wounded in a hallway at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. A 14-year-old student is arrested. One of the wounded girls is paralyzed. -Oct. 1: A 16-year-old boy in Pearl, Miss., is accused of killing his mother and then going to his high school and shooting nine students, two fatally. He is sentenced to life in prison. Two others await trial on accessory charges.

Families of three students killed in a 1997 high school shooting rampage in West Paducah blame violence in the media. This week, they sued several entertainment companies for $130 million, charging that violent computer games, Internet porn and a Leonardo DiCaprio movie contributed to the attack.

Michael Carneal, a 14-year-old freshman at Heath High School in West Paducah, opened fire on a group of students in the lobby with a stolen pistol as their prayer group was breaking up. Carneal pleaded guilty but mentally ill in answer to murder and other charges and got life in prison.

In the 1995 movie The Basketball Diaries, DiCaprio's drug-addled character, during a dream sequence, guns down a teacher and classmates at his school.

Carneal enjoyed playing popular, ultraviolent computer games such as Doom, Quake and Redneck Rampage, which honed his shooting skills, the lawsuit said.

Early reports of Tuesday's shooting quoted witnesses as saying that at least one of the gunmen wore a long black trench coat like the one DeCaprio wears in the movie.

Ten percent of public schools experienced one or more serious violent crimes, defined as murder, rape or other type of sexual battery, suicide, physical attack or fight with a weapon, or robbery, during the 1996-1997 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

The problem has become so widespread that the Colorado Association of School Executives held a daylong workshop for educators on crisis response in schools.

"I'm shocked and not shocked," said Schlenvogt, who helped organize the all-too-timely event.

"I just hope it was timely enough."