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3 Factors of Prevention

# 1 – Violent Language & Presumption of Innocence
One of the first factors that may have prevented children from coming forward is the frequency of violent language and the subsequent presumption of innocence. As you know, violent language, especially among teens, is commonplace, and usually casual.  Sports teams, for example, will refer to a victory as “killing the other team.” There are two aspects of this which are applicable to the shootings we have so far discussed.

The first aspect is summed up by Stacey Hunt, a classmate of Mitchell Johnson. Stacey indicated that she had heard Mitchell referring to violent acts before the event. Stacey stated that Mitchell had talked about having a list, and that, “everybody was going to pay.  But he didn’t say that he was going to go and pull the fire alarm, get everyone outside and shoot them, you know? He was going around bragging like any other kid would when they were mad.” Clearly Stacey, like her classmates, attributed nothing out of the ordinary to such violent threats, rather normalizing them as a common expression of frustration and anger.

A second aspect is that students like Michael and Mitchell were widely known as pranksters, bullies, and prone to acting out. Many attributed these threats to the same behaviors, assuming that the shooters were merely looking for attention. In some cases, shooters may have made so many warnings beforehand that their classmates become convinced that nothing will actually happen. Even instances of a shooter bringing a gun to school may have been interpreted as this bluffing, show-off behavior.

For #2  and #3 Factors of Preventions and 3 Frames School Children Use for Identifying a Threat as Serious go to School Shootings Course