Every shooting at a school in April 2024

Has any progress been made during the 25 years since Columbine as gun violence continues to escalate at schools across the country?

Today: On May 1, a 14-year-old student with a rifle was killed by police trying to enter Mount Horeb Middle during morning classes in Mount Horeb, WI (small town of 7,754 about 25 miles from Madison). Just like the shooting at Perry High in Perry, IA in January, 8 of the 10 highest casualty school shootings took place in a “never happens here” small community.

Some Good News: In April, The Economist: Inside a Month of America’s School Shootings won first prize at the International Media Association Awards.

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On April 27, a 13-year-old student in Florida was arrested for plotting a school shooting. He told the school’s guidance counselor that he was hearing the voices of the Columbine shooters telling him to commit the attack. He was the second student arrested at the same middle school for plotting a school shooting this school year.

Luckily, we made it through the 25-year anniversary of Columbine without a mass shooting at a school (until a 14-year-old with a rifle was killed by police outside a middle school in Wisconsin). Over the last year, multiple plots were detected and averted before a student arrived on campus with a gun.

There were also “near misses” an adult man having a mental crisis was arrested after breaking into a North Carolina elementary school and wandering the halls with an assault rifle. He broke into the school early on a Saturday morning and it’s unclear if he was able to comprehend the day or time, or what he was planning to do if students were inside the building.

Location of shootings at schools so far in 2024

What wasn’t stopped in April was the more isolated, pervasive gun violence at schools. In April:

• Mother was killed by her ex-husband during student pickup at an elementary school in Washington.

• Student committed suicide in the school parking lot with a handgun he took out of his parent’s car after a meeting with school administrators in Tennessee.

• Two students were shot during a fight at dismissal in Tennessee.

• Student was shot inside a classroom in Dallas by a classmate while class was in session. The unarmed teacher told the shooter not to hurt anyone else and just leave the school, which he did. The shooter was arrested outside without any other violence occurring.

• Student was shot 5 times by a classmate when he exited a portable classroom just before dismissal at a high school in Arlington, TX. He died at the hospital.

When we think about the effectiveness of school security, we need to remember that if a fight turns into a shooting during afternoon classes or dismissal, it is very likely that the teenage shooter had a gun on campus the entire day.

Shootings in Texas highlight fundamental issues

I spoke to the Dallas Morning News after a week with multiple incidents at schools: Texas fortified campuses after Uvalde, but gun violence affecting schools continues

In the past two weeks, gunfire has rocked three North Texas school communities. None of the incidents devolved into the kind of mass shooting the nation has come to know too well. But they shook students’ sense of security and ignited questions about what more leaders can do to keep children safe.

“It’s a paralyzing fear,” said Dallas mother Danielle Curtis, whose daughter was at Wilmer-Hutchins High when one student shot another in a classroom on April 12.

Fortification of school campuses hasn’t slowed the number of shootings happening each month. The shootings in Dallas happened at schools that have police officers, armed guards, metal detectors, and clear backpacks.

David Riedman said the recent incidents demonstrate the complexities of keeping schools safe and how unrealistic it can be to completely secure buildings.

“A school is a place where people are in and out of the building the entire day,” he said. “So you can fortify the main school building. You could add ballistic windows … but the reality is that it’s not a supermax prison.”

Riedman said the solutions must stem from the community and home. “Teenagers are getting access to weapons that they can’t legally purchase,” he said. “So that means, at some point, there was a legal gun owner who didn’t secure this weapon.”

Beyond safe gun storage, the researcher urged adults to teach teenagers more strategies for dealing with conflict resolution and to invest more in crisis intervention.

Riedman said students need to understand that when they go to settle a dispute with a gun, “you’re not only ending someone else’s life, you’re ending your own life.”

Trends

Number of incidents in April from 2015-2024:

Number of victims in April from 2015-2024:

Every shooting in April

4/30/2024: Cleveland,  OH

Glenville High School  

Location: Parking Lot

Time Period: Dismissal

Student shot while waiting for bus at dismissal