School shootings | 20 years of violence in the U.S.


Parents and children are reunited at Chardon Middle School in Chardon, Ohio Monday, Feb, 27, 2012, following a shooting at Chardon High School. A teenager described as an outcast at the suburban Cleveland high school opened fire in the cafeteria Monday, killing one student and wounding four others before he was chased from the building by a teacher and captured a short distance away, authorities said. (AP Photo/Ashtabula Star Beacon, Warren Dillaway)

Nancy Norsic, left, hugs her son after being reunited following a shooting Monday, Feb. 27, 2012 at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio. A teenager described as an outcast at the suburban Cleveland high school opened fire in the cafeteria Monday, killing one student and wounding four others before he was chased from the building by a teacher and captured a short distance away, authorities said. (AP Photo/The Star-Beacon, Warren Dillaway)

In this Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012 photo, seventeen-year-old T.J. Lane is led from Juvenile Court by Sheriff's deputies in Chardon, Ohio, after his arraignment in the shooting of five high school students Monday. Three of the five students wounded in the attacks have since died. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

 

S.W.A.T. members leave Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio Monday, Feb. 27, 2012. A gunman opened fire inside the high school's cafeteria at the start of the school day Monday, wounding five students, officials said. Special Agent Vicki Anderson said Monday the shooter was taken into custody near his car about half a mile away from the high school. A spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic confirmed five students were being treated at two different hospitals. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

This still frame from a video tape release on Wednesday, April 26, 2000, by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department shows a destroyed computer, left, and broken windows, right, in the library at Columbine High School after the April 20, 1999 shooting. Jefferson County Sheriff's Department Monday, May 15, 2000, released a minute-by-minute account of the Columbine High bloodbath, showing that the 12 students killed by teen-age gunmen were dead within 16 minutes. The timeline appears to counter claimsby the victims' families that officers could have saved lives if they had acted more quickly. (AP Photo/HO

A distraught Ava Polaski, a sophomore, leaves school grounds with her mother Misty Polaski following a shooting in Chardon, Ohio on Monday, Feb. 27, 2012. A teenager described as a bullied outcast at Chardon High School opened fire in the cafeteria Monday morning, killing one student and wounding four others before being caught a short distance away, authorities said. The suspect, whose name was not released, was arrested near his car a half-mile away, the FBI said. He was not immediately charged. (AP Photo/The Plain Dealer, Thomas Ondrey)

Medics take a wounded student to an ambulance Thursday, May 21,1998, outside Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., after a student who had been expelled for bringing a gun to class Wednesday, opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in a high school cafeteria, killing at least one person and critically wounding seven others. (AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Paul Carter)

1/16/98  HEARING IN SCHOOL MURDERS: Michael Carneal (left) appears with his attorney, Charles Granner, at Carneal's arraignment Thursday in Paducah, Ky. He is accused of murdering three classmates in a shooting rampage at his high school. His lawyer suggested that the 14-year-old may have been mentally impaired but did not request a mental evaluation of his client. Circuit Judge Ron Daniels entered not-guilty pleas on the teen's behalf. (AP Photo/The Paducah Sun, Kenneth Holt)

Craighead County, Ark., Sherriff Deputies rush 12-year-old Andrew Golden into a back door of the county courthouse for his hearing in Jonesboro, Ark., Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1998. Golden, along with Westside Middle School classmate Mitchell Johnson, are accused of slaying four classmates and a teacher March 24, 1998. (AP Photo/Jonesboro Sun,Rodney Freeman)

12/02/97  A Heath High School student screams after seeing the scene of Monday's shooting in West Paducah, Ky. Two students were killed and six wounded when a 14-year-old freshman opened fire on classmates taking part in an informal prayer meeting before school. (AP Photo/The Paducah Sun/Steve Nagy)

Westside Middle School shooting suspect Mitchell Johnson is rushed into a backdoor of the Craighead County, Ark., Courthouse Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1998, for his hearing. Johnson, who turned 14 Tuesday, is acussed along with classmate Andrew Golden of slaying four classmates and a teacher in March. (AP Photo/Jonesboro Sun,Rodney Freeman) 

Cora Reeder, left, her father Joe Lynch, and her sister Tiffany Lynch, right, console each other accross the street from Santana High School in Santee, Calif., after a student shot 15 people on the campus, Monday, March 5, 2001. Two teen-agers died and the suspect, a ninth-grader, was apprehended. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

Emergency personnel sit at the back of an ambulance following the shootings at Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Ark., Tuesday, March 24, 1998. Two boys in camouflage lay in wait behind their middle school and opened fire on their classmates and teachers during a fake fire drill Tuesday. Four were killed and 12 others were wounded, officials said. (AP Photo/Jonesboro Sun, Bill Templeton)

In a photo made available by Image Photography, Jeff Weise is seen in a 2005 class photo. Several students from Red Lake High School identified Weise in the photo as the gunman who killed nine people at the high school on Monday before killing himself. (AP Photo/HO, Image Photography)

Unidentified parents are reunited with their children across the street from Santana High School, after a student opened fire at the school, Monday, March 5, 2001, in Santee, Calif. A student opened fire at Santana High School Monday, according to police, smiling as he shot 15 people, killing two teen-agers, in a rampage that sent students running for cover to nearby homes and a shopping center. (AP Photo/San Diego Union-Tribune, Nadia Borowski)

 

Christopher Morrison, 16, a 10th-grader at Red Lake High School, speaks to the media at North Country Regional Hospital in Bemidji, Minn., Tuesday, March 22, 2005. Morrison was checking on friends injured Monday when Jeff Weise killed nine people at the school, including five students, before killing himself. (AP Photo/Pioneer Press, John Doman)

** FILE ** A helicopter takes off from the West Nickel Mines Amish School, in which a gunman killed five girls and injured five more, in Nickel Mines, Pa., Oct. 2, 2006. The most severely injured survivor of last year's Amish school shooting is totally dependent on her family for care, but has shown slow and steady progress in the year since the attack, according to a statement Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2007 from the community.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

Youth Outreach counselors Eileen Cassidy, left, and Matt Wickstrom sit across from Santana High School in Santee, Calif., Monday, March 5, 2001, after a 15-year-old freshman, according to police, opened fire at the school, killing two youths and wounding 13 others. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Gina Ferazzi)

Parents and children are reunited at Chardon Middle School in Chardon, Ohio Monday, Feb, 27, 2012, following a shooting at nearby Chardon High School. A teenager described as an outcast at the suburban Cleveland high school opened fire in the cafeteria Monday, killing one student and wounding four others before he was chased from the building by a teacher and captured a short distance away, authorities said. (AP Photo/Ashtabula Star Beacon, Warren Dillaway)

San Diego County Sheriff's Department SWAT team members move through the parking lot of Santana High School in Santee, Calif., after a student opened fire at the school, Monday, March 5, 2001. One person was dead at the scene and 14 others were injured, Santee Fire Department spokesman Jeff Fehlberg said. Later, a second victim died at Grossmont Hospital, according to officials. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

Students and others wait outside a shopping center to which they were evacuated, across the street from Santana High School, in Santee, Calif., Monday, March 5, 2001. A student opened fire at the school Monday, killing two people and wounding 13 others, police said. A suspect, a male student, was taken into custody at the school, according to authorities. (AP Photo/San Diego Union-Tribune, John McCutchen)

** RETRANSMISSION FOR ALTERNATE CROP ** An injured occupant is carried out of Norris Hall at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Monday, April 16, 2007. A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom on the campus, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman is killed but it's unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life. (AP Photo/The Roanoke Times, Alan Kim)

A body is carried from a schoolhouse, in which police say a gunman killed several people, in Nickel Mines, Pa. on Monday, Oct. 2, 2006. A 32-year-old milk truck driver took about a dozen girls hostage in the one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, barricaded the doors with boards and shot several people, killing at least three of the girls and apparently himself, authorities said. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Peggy Merlow waits for her son, Timothy Merlow, outside Campbell County High School in Jacksboro, Tenn. on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2005. Timothy Merlow is a student at the school, where, according to officials, another student shot three administrators. (AP Photo/The Knoxville News Sentinel, Jeff Adkins)

Members of the Virginia Tech Marching Band, Alyson Tylus, from Midlothian, Va., left, Alex Scalco, of Stevensville Md., center, and Lisa Cowley, of Bridgewater N.J., right console each other during the dedication of the memorial for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting in Blacksburg, Va., Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007. More than 10,000 people gathered on the main campus lawn Sunday as Virginia Tech dedicated 32 memorial stones for those killed by a student in a mass shooting on campus last April. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

An aerial view shows a triage area near Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., Tuesday April 20, 1999. Two young men in fatigues and black trench coats opened fire at the suburban Denver high school Tuesday in what police called a suicide mission,and the sheriff said 25 people may have been killed. (AP Photo/Rocky Mountain News, Rodolfo Gonzalez)

[SCHOOL SHOOTING ]Crime scene investigators go through the task of marking crime scene evidence Wednesday, April 21, 1999, in the doorway where two assailants entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on their shooting rampage Tuesday. Bomb squad officers checked lockers and backpacks for booby traps as investigators tried to piece together one of the deadliest school massacres in U.S. history. (AP Photo/Rocky Mountain News, Dennis Schroeder)

[SCHOOL SHOOTING ]An injured person is loaded into an ambulance outside of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., Tuesday, April 20, 1999. Three young men in fatigues and black trench coats opened fire at the suburban Denver high school Tuesday in what police called a suicide mission, and the sheriff said 25 people may have been killed. Two of the suspects were found dead in the library. (AP Photo/Rocky Mountain News, Linda McConnell)

FILE -- In an April 20, 1999 file photo rescuers tend to the wounded at a triage area near Columbine High School in Littleton Colo., during a shooting rampage by two students. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives in what remains on of the deadliest school attack in U.S. history. (AP Photo/The Denver Rocky Mountain News, George Kochaniec)

[SCHOOL SHOOTING ]A student is overcome with emotion as he sits down next to a police officer near the triage scene at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., Tuesday, April 20, 1999. Three young men in fatigues and black trench coats opened fire at the suburban Denver high school Tuesday in what police called a suicide mission. The sheriff said 25 people may have been killed, and that two of the suspects were found dead in the library. (AP Photo/Rocky Mountain News, George Kochaniec)

[SCHOOL SHOOTINGS Q ]Students gather outside Heath High School following a shooting at the school that left two dead and six students injured on Monday, Deec. 1, 1997 in Paducah, Ky. A 14-year-old boy who warned last week that ``something big's going to happen'' inserted earplugs, drew a gun and shot eight students who just ended a prayer meeting in a high school lobby Monday. Two girls died and a third was in critical condition. (AP Photo/Paducah Sun, Steve Nagy)

FILE--This is a file photo of Frontier Junior High school student Barry Loukaitas, 14, from the 1995 Moses Lake, Wash., school yearbook. Loukaitas was arrested as a suspect in a shooting at the school Friday, Feb. 2, 1996, in which three people were killed. (AP Photo/HO)

[SCHOOL SHOOTING ]RESENDING FOR ALTERNATE CROP: Unidentified students run away from Columbine High School after they were evacuated from the school in Littleton, Colo., Tuesday, April 20, 1999. Two young men in fatigues and black trench coats opened fire at the suburban Denver high school Tuesday in what police called a suicide mission, and the sheriff said 25 people may have been killed.(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Kipland Kinkel is escorted to an arraignment in Lane County Circuit Court in Eugene, Ore., June 16, 1998, where he faced four counts of aggravated murder, 26 counts of attempted aggravated murder, six counts of first-degree assault, 18 counts of second-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm in the May shootings at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore. (AP Photo/ The Register-Guard, Chris Pietsch)

A wounded student is helped to an waiting ambulance outside Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., May 21, 1998, after a student who had been expelled for bringing a gun to class, opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in a high school cafeteria, killing at least one person and critically wounding seven others. (AP Photo/The Register-Guard, Paul Carter)

Backpacks and cleaning supplies lie in the hallway of Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., Wed., March 25, 1998. The view is from a door used by students to leave the building during a false fire alarm Tuesday. Two boys hidden in a wooded area opened fire on the students leaving the school, killing four girls and one teacher and injuring 11 others. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) 

Colorado officials respond to NRA's call for armed cops in all schools

Posted:   12/21/2012 12:00:00 AM MST
Updated:   12/22/2012 05:41:17 PM MST

By Jordan Steffen
The Denver Post

The only way to stop the next gunman "waiting in the wings" is to place an armed police officer in every school in America, National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre said Friday morning.

Just one week after a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school where 20 children and six adults were killed — and as polls showed an increasing public cry for more gun control — the nation's largest gun-rights lobby group demanded Congress immediately appropriate funds for additional officers.

The NRA also asked for the creation of an "active database of the mentally ill," against which gun purchases could be checked.

LaPierre, who took no questions from reporters, warned that swift action was needed to stop the next killer from being lured to action by the "media machine that rewards them with wall-to-wall action and a sense of identity that they crave."

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun," LaPierre said, "is a good guy with a gun."

In Colorado, many public schools are already staffed by armed police or deputies — and have been since before the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School.

Several Colorado law enforcement agencies that oversee the school resource officer programs say increasing the number of cops at schools might be welcomed, but the vastness of NRA's call to arms is unrealistic.

"I don't think that anyone is going to look at the NRA for school-safety practices," Greenwood Village police Chief John Jackson.

Tony Bendera of Westminster is shooting at the indoor range of Firing-Line, Colorado's largest gun shop, on Wednesday. Aurora, CO. November 28, 2012. (Denver Post file photo)

Jackson's department manages five school resource officers who work at five schools, including Cherry Creek High. The 90-acre campus is the largest noncollegiate campus in Colorado.

"It's not about just sitting in an office," Jackson said. "They spend their days split into three jobs — they are a teacher, a counselor and a police officer. At any given time, they can be doing many of those roles."

Jefferson County Sheriff's Sgt. Wayne Holverson, who oversees 10 of the 37 officers who patrol Jeffco Public Schools, said deputies are stretched so thin that he can't imagine adding more schools to the patrol.

Those 10 deputies work primarily at five high schools, including Columbine, and nine middle schools and assist at 32 elementary schools. Since the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, in Newtown, Conn., deputies in the division have been required to check in at least one elementary school in the morning and one elementary school in the afternoon.

During a typical school day, deputies may handle multiple incidents, ranging from sitting in on student meetings with counselors to taking reports of thefts from lockers to investigating incidents of "sexting."

"It's a very challenging scenario to think there's a capability of having an armed law enforcement professional in every school all the time," County Sheriffs of Colorado executive director Chris Olson told The Denver Post editorial board. "It's not just a cop sitting at the front door."

School resource officer programs in Colorado are only a single — and expensive — element of school-security programs.

Denver Public Schools' total security budget is $5.4 million, and $1.5 million of that budget covers a contract with the Denver Police Department for the district's 15 school resource officers, DPS spokesman Dave Nachtweih said.

Shrinking school budgets could affect districts' abilities to keep or expand school resource officer programs and could result in cuts to crucial programs used to prevent school violence, said Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association.

"We've cut $1 billion in funding that has reduced the number of school counselors and school psychologists," Dallman said. "If we are serious as a nation and as a state, we really have to focus our attention so our students have access to high quality mental health services early on."

National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel called the NRA's demands "shocking."

"Their delusional assumption that everything other than guns contribute to these tragedies reflects just how out of touch the NRA has become," Roekel said in a statement. "Their proposal misses the fact that in many schools across the country, we have school resource officers and yet tragic incidents like Newtown, Chardon, Columbine, Paducah and Jonesboro still have occurred."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related Articles

Dec 23:

• Newtown residents turn to their faith
• Newtown: Parents, gift-givers rethink video games as gifts
• Parents' burden: Lack of resources adds to challenges of caring for the mentally ill

Dec 22:

• Columbine survivors tell Newtown families 'over time, pain lessens'

Dec 21:

• Education secretary asks for reasonable gun limits
• Day of Mourning in Conn. for Newtown victims
• Obama on gun violence: 'We hear you'
• Gun control debate heating up in statehouses
• Bells rung in Colo. for CT shooting victims
• NRA calls for armed police officer in every school
• Violence baked into popular culture
• Children, teachers remembered in string of Connecticut funerals

Dec 20:

• Pension funds reconsider investments in gun makers

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Storms threaten more holiday travel chaos

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Traveling could be tricky in certain parts of the U.S., where blizzards and severe storms are expected to last through the evening on Christmas day. The Weather Channel's Paul Goodloe reports.

By Isolde Raftery and Ian Johnston, NBC News A major winter storm that dumped up to six feet of snow in the mountains of California was headed east Monday, raising the specter of yet more holiday travel chaos across much of the United States, forecasters warned.

The storm was cutting a path across the country as Americans make their way to and from holiday gatherings, smacking the Rocky Mountain states starting late Monday and eventually hitting New England late Thursday or Friday, weather.com reported.

Last week, snow and high winds disrupted thousands of flights from the Midwest through the Northeast.
“Unfortunately, this occurs not only during the Christmas holiday, but also in the peak travel period after Christmas Day in the South, Midwest, and East,” weather.com said.

“Travel will become treacherous Christmas Day and Christmas night from the High Plains of western Kansas and the Texas Panhandle eastward into Oklahoma, extreme north Texas, Arkansas, and into the mid-Mississippi Valley,” weather.com said.

“In the warm sector of the storm system ... severe thunderstorms with tornadoes, damaging winds, and hail will erupt across a swath of the Deep South on Christmas Day,” it added.

Storm warnings
The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings early Monday for parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, Montana and Idaho.

According to the flightstats.com website, 82 flights had been canceled and 1,949 had been delayed across the U.S. as of 2:52 p.m. ET Monday. It was unclear how many of these problems were due to the weather.

Weather.com said heavy mountain snow was winding down over the Sierra Nevada after the storm, which it named “Euclid,” left behind "a whopping six feet ... in the higher elevations Saturday and Sunday.”
The Bitterroot, Teton, Wasatch and Rocky Mountains were next in line for snow, with up to 12 inches or more expected.

“Lower elevations will get in on the snow too, so beware of snow-covered roads around Salt Lake City,” weather.com said. “Euclid will lay down a blanket of fresh snow by Christmas morning into parts of the adjacent High Plains, including Denver.”

“Euclid will then become the next major weather system to affect the central and eastern states with snow and thunderstorms beginning Christmas Day,” it added.

Hundreds of flights hit again as winter weather continues

'Significant' flight delays
The bad weather will move east Wednesday and Thursday on a track from southern Illinois through central Indiana into northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan will see the heaviest [snowfall] totals in this phase of Euclid's journey,” weather.com said.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

According to estimates by AAA, 93 million Americans will venture at least 50 miles from home over the holidays. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports on the travel situation from one of the country's busiest airports in Atlanta.

“Expect wintry travel conditions to spread into the Ohio Valley by Wednesday morning.  Air delays in the region may be significant!” it added. “There may also be a narrow zone of sleet and freezing rain in parts of Indiana and Ohio sandwiched between the snow and rain.”

It said the “primary impacts” of the storm would arrive in the Northeast Wednesday into early Thursday.
Gusty winds and “widespread precipitation” were expected in the Northeast, Weather.com said.

Snow was likely for an area including the eastern Great Lakes, northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and northern New England.

The cities of the I-95 corridor and east to the coast were expected to get mainly rain, although some places could get brief periods of light snow or a “wintry mix.”

“Despite the ‘more wet than white’ forecast for the I-95 urban corridor, expect major delays at the major Northeast airport hubs Wednesday due to low cloud ceilings and strong winds,” weather.com warned. “These delays may persist into Thursday morning due to low clouds, wind, and potential changeover to light snow.”

Weather.com also warned that a developing storm system in the Deep South could bring “a plethora of weather hazards” to the central United States on Christmas Day. “Severe thunderstorms capable of damaging winds and tornadoes are possible for portions of the Lower Mississippi River Valley and southeast U.S.,” it said.

Rain and thunderstorms are expected to hit places like Jacksonville, Charlotte and Orlando Wednesday, weather.com said.

Freedom*Rock of 2003 & 2012


Freedom*Rock's Home page
http://www.ticz.com/homes/users/bob/On-A-Rock/On-A-Rock.htm
Home page has the 2011 pictures, a Guest Book, brief history
and detailed directions and map to the Freedom*Rock's location.

Go check out the other years
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Every year, for the last nine years, a talented artist, Ray (Bubba) Sorensen II, has done a Memorial Day tribute to our servicemen and servicewomen, both past and present, with a stirring tableau painted on a large granite boulder which stands next to Highway 25. The huge granite boulder came out of the nearby Schillberg Rock Quarry and it weighs approx. 56 ton (50.8Mg) and is 12 ft (3.7m) high.

For years this boulder was known as "the graffiti rock" and was decorated for high school rivalries, love interests, etc. Since the Memorial Day paintings began, the "rock" has remained with the annual tribute intact.

When Sorensen was 19, he saw 'Saving Private Ryan' and he felt that patriotism was at an all time low and was not being taught in our schools and this motivated him to paint the rock. People were always driving by to see what was painted on the rock. Sometimes there were bad things and other times is was good. He knew if he painted the rock a lot of people would see it.

Sorensen paints over the previous years mural with white paint and starts with a black canvas. He draws a sketch of his idea on paper and then draws the design by free hand onto the rock. This takes him anywhere from one to three weeks to paint. He gets his ideas from books, movies, previous artwork and images by other artists.

If you are anywhere close, you shouldn't miss the opportunity to see what is truly an American treasure.

Ray (Bubba) Sorensen II masterpieces

Here's the artist Ray "Bubba" Sorensen.

RL Jones site manager rbrb392@hotmail.com 2012 Here are directions to the Freedom*Rock's Location RL Jones site manager rbrb392@gmail.com @Copyrights