As details begin to emerge about what was known well before the shooting at Virginia Tech about the shooter, the real tragedy is emerging. It was not the lack of responsiveness in the immediate aftermath of the early morning dorm room shooting. It was the lack of response by the university higher-ups to obvious cries for help from a student and his teachers. This should be the lesson learned. There are always warning signs, if someone was just paying enough attention…
And here we go again. Remember, I am someone who is very active in the field of violence prevention, but the recent rise in homicides in Montgomery and the shooting at Virginia Tech are not connected to a deeper cultural issue. These are cylical things that come and go. This doesn’t mean we should not be addressing the underlying factors that contribute to these events, but this kind of “culture” talk always happens after one of these horribly tragic events and it makes me sick.
We should always be looking for ways to reduce violence in our communities and to try and understand the best approaches for doing that. I hope Virginia Tech will offer an opportunity to begin that discussion on some college campuses where it has been long neglected, but one event does not make a trend.
© 2007 The World Around You
