Today while I was driving to school and listening to Joy FM, I noticed that today felt kind of weird. It was like something was off. I tried thinking of so many different things it could be, but nothing was sparking. After a while of not being able to pin it down, I decided that it had to be me being paranoid or something so I began to think about other things. Not really about one thing in particular, but mainly about giving blood at school and being late as well as life, God, & how everything has been changing so much so fast. These are the normal thoughts in the mind of this giraffe. However, as soon as I entered school grounds, I knew something was wrong. All of my flags went up. There weren’t any people. It was like everyone had disappeared. Sure, all the cars were there, but the normal hustle and bustle of students going to class, the employees of the college teaching around campus, campus security shuffling through every car in the parking lot, the construction workers pouring cement by the front entrance… Everyone gone. I pulled my car through the back of the lot towards the science building where I was supposed to be giving blood, but as I got closer, I noticed a whole bunch of students gathered outside. At first I was relieved, but then I realized what was going on.. The police were gathered around the math, science, and nursing building. I was stuck between cars that were waiting on the police who were blocking the road to get to the parking lots. Everyone was dead silent. I sat in the line of cars trying to get a better look at what exactly was going on. The ring of my phone made me jump, I fumbled with it a bit, but was finally able to get it into my hands. I recognized the number. The school sent out an automated message telling us that it was on lockdown. As the message continued, I saw the sheriff put on his bulletproof vest and walk towards the school. No one was allowed to exit or enter any building and everyone was to stay clear of the math, science, and nursing building. I couldn’t believe what was happening….
As it turned out, the whole ordeal was a false alarm. For some reason, an off duty police officer was at our school with his gun, someone saw it, freaked, and the rest is history. For a moment though, it felt like I woke up in one of my worst nightmares. Everyone knows that these types of things happen. We see it on TV, we read about it in the papers, and we hear about it on the radio. It’s becoming more and more frequent every day. Back in the 50’s and 60’s people were protesting about equal rights and war. Now, people (KIDS, as in CHILDREN included) are bringing guns and knives to school to take the lives of those who are closest to them. And the thing is, nobody thinks it will actually happen to them. Each and every one of us have the same mindset: It could happen, but it won’t happen to me.
Really..?
- March 13, 1996
Dunblane, Scotland16 children and one teacher killed at Dunblane Primary School by Thomas Hamilton, who then killed himself. 10 others wounded in attack.
- Dec. 1, 1997
West Paducah, Ky.Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
- March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Ark.Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods.
- May 21, 1998
Springfield, Ore.Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home.
- April 20, 1999
Littleton, Colo.14 students (including killers) and one teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation’s deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.
- Feb. 29, 2000
Mount Morris Township, Mich.Six-year-old Kayla Rolland shot dead at Buell Elementary School near Flint, Mich. The assailant was identified as a six-year-old boy with a .32-caliber handgun.
- March 2000
Branneburg, GermanyOne teacher killed by a 15-year-old student, who then shot himself. The shooter has been in a coma ever since.
- Nov. 12, 2001
Caro, Mich.Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center before killing himself.
- April 26, 2002
Erfurt, Germany13 teachers, two students, and one policeman killed, ten wounded by Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, at the Johann Gutenberg secondary school. Steinhaeuser then killed himself.
- October 28, 2002
Tucson, Ariz.Robert S. Flores Jr., 41, a student at the nursing school at the University of Arizona, shot and killed three female professors and then himself.
- March 21, 2005
Red Lake, Minn. Jeff Weise, 16, killed grandfather and companion, then arrived at school where he killed a teacher, a security guard, 5 students, and finally himself, leaving a total of 10 dead.
- Sept. 13, 2006
Montreal, Canada Kimveer Gill, 25, opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at Dawson College. Anastasia De Sousa, 18, died and more than a dozen students and faculty were wounded before Gill killed himself.
- Oct. 3, 2006
Nickel Mines, Pa.32-year-old Carl Charles Roberts IV entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from 6 to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died.
- April 16, 2007
Blacksburg, Va.A 23-year-old Virginia Tech student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more 2 hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making the shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.
- Feb. 14, 2008
DeKalb, IllinoisGunman killed five students and then himself, and wounded 17 more when he opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University. The gunman, Stephen P. Kazmierczak, was identified as a former graduate student at the university in 2007.
- Feb. 12, 2010
Huntsville, AlabamaDuring a meeting on campus, Amy Bishop, a biology professor, began shot her colleagues, killing three and wounding three others. A year earlier, Bishop had been denied tenure.
- April 7, 2011
Rio de Janeiro, BrazilA 23-year-old former student returned to his public elementary school in Rio de Janeiro and began firing, killing 12 children and seriously wounding more than a dozen others, before shooting himself in the head. While Brazil has seen gang-related violence in urban areas, this was the worst school shooting the country has ever seen.
- July 22, 2011
Tyrifjorden, Buskerud, NorwayA gunman disguised as a policeman opened fire at a camp for young political activists on the island of Utoya. The gunman kills 68 campers, including personal friends of Prime Minister Stoltenberg. Police arrested Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old Norwegian who had been been linked to an anti-Islamic group.
- July 20, 2012
Aurora, Colo.During a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises, a gunman opens fire on the crowded theater. At least 12 people are killed and 38 others are wounded. The suspect, James Holmes, set off a smoke device in the front of the theater before opening fire. Directly after the incident, Holmes, age 24, was arrested in a parking lot behind the theater.
- December 14, 2012
Newtown, Conn.Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 children and six others at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. He killed his mother, Nancy, at her home prior to the massacre at the school. Lanza committed suicide after the rampage. The shooting was the second deadliest in U.S. history, behind the 2007 shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute that claimed 32 people.
Really.
For me… Today was a day of great awakening. I’m not going to sit back, watch these things happen, and then act sympathetic in my perfect little world. We are so oblivious to the fact that this is our world. This is happening, right here, right now. I’m not saying that everyone should live in fear and await a moment similar to the ones above. No. Please do not misunderstand me. But I am saying that it’s time that we stop living in the mindset that everything is perfect. That even though many other countries alongside America is circling the financial drain and societies are in worse shape then ever, its ok because nothing bad is happening to me. These are sad days we’re living in and although it might get better, right now its not. It’s just time to wake up.
Read more from my source!
Time Line of Worldwide School Shootings — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html#ixzz2KfLtwkqo
Spotted Giraffe 