Yesterday was Today is the 10th anniversary of the Columbine shootings in Littleton, Colorado. I can’t believe it’s been a full ten years. I think in everyone’s life there are events that happen where remember exactly where you were, what you were doing. 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing, President Bush ordering the go ahead into Iraq, Obama being elected President and the shootings at Columbine.
I was a sophomore at Canfield High School. I was at the house of a classmates as we were working on a group project concerning Macbeth for our English class. In the background, my classmate’s mom had turned the T.V. on and the first image I remember is seeing a flock of people running like hell out the school and seeing that red “Breaking News” banner across the bottom of the screen. It was probably about 3:30pm EST.
We all mourned for the students and the one teacher who were killed and the countless more that were injured. I think my school even did a candlelight vigil in remembrance. And of course, this was the most horrific part of what happened that April 20th.
In our small little world in Ohio, everything changed after Columbine. You now how to sign in and out of the high school. We had security guards walking around the perimeters. There was only one door kept unlocked. New safety procedures were pounded into us. We had random locker searches, random bag searches and special classes and programs set up to help those of us who were having an especially hard time coping with high school – and all that goes with that. We even had a change in dress code in which overly baggy clothes were now banned. I think what Columbine represented to me, for really the first time in my life, was that I wasn’t safe, that it could happen in my school or in the next school over. And my school made damn sure that we were all aware of that. And some of my classmates, instead of being the ones protected and/or counseled became targets and the ones being protected against.
I still feel for the families and the lives affected by that day at Columbine and all the other schools that have dealt with school shootings and crime. But I have to ask if the problem got solved? Is the solution to stopping school shootings more security or could it be more focus on how children and teens are allowed to behave towards one another? I know that sounds preachy but I still remember what school was like, how I was treated and it basically sucked, I bet for most of us yet we knew better than to go into school and harm our classmates. How do some of these kids fall through that crack?
Sorry if this all sounded a little too pushy, it’s just my opinion. ETA: if you think I’m being overdramatic, read this from the Globe: Constantly bullied, he ends his life at 11
Three Months\' Time 