Frontline: The Killer at Thurston High

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/profile/
>>>snip
During a visit to Springfield, Oregon in June of 1998, President Clinton walked the corridors of Thurston High and visited the cafeteria where bullet holes from the violence a month before had been freshly spackled and painted. Quietly, in the school library, he met with the families of more than two dozen students wounded when fifteen-year-old Kip Kinkel opened fire; some of the student victims were still in casts or using crutches to stand.

In the school gymnasium, the president talked about his "concern" in coming to Springfield. "I was afraid all I could do was to tell you that your country has been thinking about you and praying for you and pulling for you." The president wanted to do more than just offer comfort (which he nevertheless did in his customary and effective role as Consoler-in-Chief). And he did not want simply to assign blame for school violence, although he pointed fingers at: the glorification of violence in popular culture and its desensitizing effect on young minds; easy access to guns; and lax parental supervision.
A number of warnings have been sounded about the warning signs approach itself. Some checklists have been criticized as unhelpfully vague or misleadingly predictive. So what else was there to do? Standing beneath a banner that featured Springfield's new slogan --"Let It End Here," an allusion to Springfield's place on a list of towns scarred by school shootings that included Pearl, Mississippi, Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas -- President Clinton announced to the Thurston High crowd that he was taking action: He directed the Secretary of Education and the Attorney General to prepare a guidebook of "early warning signs" for potential school violence to be distributed to every school in the country. By the start of the new school year, the government completed its guide, "Early Warning, Timely Response" and distributed it nationwide as "practical help to keep every child out of harm's way."

As a kind of response to the problem of school violence, lists of warning signs have proven extremely popular. During the year surrounding the killing at Thurston High, the American Psychological Association issued "22 Warning Signs" that might indicate a "serious possibility" or "potential" for violence. The National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, drafted a 20-point "Checklist of Characteristics of Youth Who Have Caused School-Associated Violent Deaths." And The National Center for the Prevention of Crime (NCPC) - popularizers of "McGruff The Crime Dog," who famously helped kids "take a bite out of crime" -- offered a list of "signs that kids are troubled" which might require "action."

I think anybody who seriously wants to look at the issue, and not just push their own pet agenda, should watch it.

It was most excellent. Lots of good info.