4 Calif. Students Arrested For Alleged Mass-Killing Plot

The New York Times reports that four high school students in the small California town of Tuolumne, about 120 miles east of San Francisco, have been arrested, but not yet charged, for planning an attack on their school, Summerville High School. According to the Times, three of the four were overheard discussing this plot, and a fourth conspirator was later identified. Their goal, according to Toulumne sheriff James Mele, was "to shoot and kill as many people as possible at the campus"; they had not however been able yet to obtain the weapons they wanted to carry out the attack. From NBC News' version of the story: "Detectives located evidence verifying a plot to shoot staff and students at Summerville High School," Mele said. "The suspects' plan was very detailed in nature and included names of would-be victims, locations and the methods in which the plan was to be carried out."

Comments

Re:Bullying

[DarkOx]

I suspect a big part of the problem is teenagers should not spend quite so much time with other teenagers. Teens certainly need some time with each other but I really think they should be spending a larger part of their day surrounded principally but adults, in a more vocational context. That isn't 30 of their peers and 1 grown up in the room, with long periods like lunch with little to no adult interaction. Put a bunch of immature people together with no one to emulate but each other and its no surprise we get really strange emergent behavior.

Adolescents need to be working with watching and learning to emulate how adults behave, and interact with one another solve problems etc. A couple hundred years ago if you were 14 you'd have been working on your fathers farm with him or in the kitchen around your mother and the other ladies. You'd spend your Sunday interacting at church etc again where there would be more adults around most of the time than other children. I think as a society we should look at teaching higher maths and reading levels sooner, it works in other parts of the world. If we could push algebra etc down to the Junior high level and wrap up primary and secondary education by 14 we could then send kids out into the workforce for awhile during their formative years. Maybe make it a normal thing to assist your parent at their job etc. When kids get to be 18, 19 etc then they go back to higher education if that is their path.