Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Unfortunately, School Shooting Prediction Can Occur

Sadly, the school shooting was no surprise to the readers of this blog, of last Friday, March 18th.

"...a possible series of school shootings from March 20th through April 20th could occur...I hope not, but every indication is that the media is entering its first post-9/11 'shooting rampage' feeding frenzy, and as March nears its end, and into April, 'school shootings' could be next."

I based this from an analysis of how the Werther (copycat) effect from other events (mall shootings, murder-suicides, courthouse shootings) spill over into school shootings, and the anniversary reality of the calendar.

In my book, The Copycat Effect
(NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004), I point out the youthful suicidal "school shooting" subculture uses the neo-Nazi calendar as a temporal roadmap. Columbine's and Erfurt, Germany's school shootings are the two most obvious examples.

This morning's Steve Karnowski-authored Associated Press story from Minnesota gives details on the alleged shooter's father who died by suicide, and the background of neo-Nazi information emerging about the boy who killed so many.

As I write in The Copycat Effect, the neo-Nazi underpinnings and the use of dates with twilight meanings (death dates and birth dates of Nazis) to these suicidal young males are significant components in past incidents. These elements are found once again in the Red Lake, Minnesota school shooting. There is evidence, once again, of this "school shooting" subculture overwhelming what would appear to be a strong cultural milieu, in this case, the Native American at Red Lake.

Now we must hold our breath to see if this event will trigger more school shootings, in the three-day, seven-day, and one-month copycat media cycle. I would look to especially April 19-20 as the next key dates, with attention being given for that entire April 18-26 time period.

1 comment:

Loren Coleman said...

There is no glee in my tone but sorrow that the helpful and obvious predictive nature of this phenomenon is not used by others. Sometimes people only pay attention if there are results. If something can be validated and used by others, that's what it is all about. Ignoring the assistance that people can get from "reading" the indicators is unfortunate. Seeing school shootings occur is tragic and sad. I'm the first one to feel that way, especially since I've had to deal with the aftermaths of such situation too often in my life and profession.