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| RECOVERING FROM TRAGEDY | |
 May 11, 1999 
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JIM LEHRER: Springfield, Oregon, one year after its school shooting. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. LEE HOCHBERG: Few towns outside Colorado felt the horror of the Littleton School massacre like Springfield, Oregon. Many residents are still healing from the town's own school shooting a year ago. When tragedy hit in Colorado, some, like these people tying blue ribbons in a symbolic plea for nonviolence, hurried to comfort their young. WOMAN: We're going to make the schools safe for you, aren't we? LITTLE GIRL: Uh-huh. WOMAN: And you're going to have fun in school, aren't you? LITTLE GIRL: Yes. LEE HOCHBERG: It was a year ago when a student pumped 50 rounds of ammunition into 24 classmates in the cafeteria of Springfield's Thurston High School, killing two. 15-year-old Kip Kinkel had been arrested and suspended from school a day earlier after authorities found a gun in his locker. He allegedly shot and killed his parents later that night, then opened fire on his classmates the next day. His trial is upcoming. Police say his father had purchased the gun because of the boy's fascination with firearms. BETINA LYNN, Shooting Victim: An emotional part of it is you realize how close you came to losing everything. LEE HOCHBERG: Recuperation for the community and the 22 wounded teenagers has come slowly. A bullet from the assailant's gun missed Betina Lynn's spine by less than an inch. Her recovery has been painful, and she's left Thurston High. BETINA LYNN: I couldn't sit through any movie for a couple months just because I was so fatigued with my physical recovery. And then after that, I couldn't watch any movie or television program that had any knife violence, let alone gun violence, just because I could not handle seeing it. LEE HOCHBERG: Jesse Walley was shot in the abdomen. He says he's doing okay, but some classmates have been unable to return to the cafeteria, and they were retraumatized when the school principal announced the Colorado shooting. JESSE WALLEY, Shooting Victim: He just came on and said, "Excuse the interruption. There's been a school -- there's a school shooting in progress in Colorado." Some of them at least were just in complete hysterics, even after they found out it was 1,000 miles away. MONA WALLEY, Mother of Shooting Victim: I hurt so bad. I just -- I just can't believe that it happened again. LEE HOCHBERG: Jesse's mother, Mona, says she's suffered sudden and intense crying fits since her son was shot. MONA WALLEY: And I've done that now for a year, for a year. And will it stop next year? I don't know. LEE HOCHBERG: The Springfield School District has used the year to consider how to prevent school shootings. The high school has hired a police officer to parole school grounds and serve as an ear for student tips. Following advice from this government handbook, teachers have been told to watch for signals of potential violence: Student rage over minor problems, unusual interest in firearms. Experts in school violence say counselors could help. JOHN GANZ, Federal Response Team: School's a perfect place to intervene with kids at risk. LEE HOCHBERG: John Ganz was leader of the federal response team sent to Oregon shortly after the Springfield shooting. He says the tragedy shows intervention with troubled students as early as kindergarten is needed. JOHN GANZ: Kids like Kip Kinkel could have been intervened with. Some people feel they should have been intervened with, that we in the school could have and do have the resources to identify those kids that are at risk, and to intervene with them. LEE HOCHBERG: But Springfield school psychologist Cathy Paine and superintendent Jamon Kent say their school's teachers and counselors are overwhelmed. JAMON KENT, Superintendent, Springfield Schools: A teacher may have 150 to 160 kids in a day. And if that's roughly six hours, that's somewhere around two to three minutes per kid. So a kid says, "I've got a problem with a class issue or I've got a problem at home." When do we get to that child? LEE HOCHBERG: You said that you've got three counselors. CATHY PAINE: How many at the high school? LEE HOCHBERG: Three. JAMON KENT: Three, isn't it? CATHY PAINE: Yeah. JAMON KENT: 1,500, Three counselors. LEE HOCHBERG: For 1,500 kids? CATHY PAINE: Uh-huh. LEE HOCHBERG: Are you saying there's little or nothing you can do? JAMON KENT: For what? LEE HOCHBERG: To reduce the odds of this happening again? JAMON KENT: Yes, I am. LEE HOCHBERG: Outside of school, a group called Ribbon of Promise formed in Springfield to fight violence. STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never be an aunt. STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never live on my own and be independent. LEE HOCHBERG: It sponsored this Thurston High performance of "Bang, Bang, You're Dead," a gritty play in which the Springfield killer is confronted by the ghosts of the classmates he killed. STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never achieve my dreams. STUDENTS IN PLAY: Never! STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never see all I want to see. STUDENTS IN PLAY: Never! STUDENT IN PLAY: I'll never know all I wanted to know. STUDENTS IN PLAY: Never! STUDENT IN PLAY: It's over. STUDENT IN PLAY: It's over! STUDENT IN PLAY: It's over for us, Josh. STUDENT IN PLAY: But it's just beginning for you. STUDENT IN PLAY: For the rest of your life. STUDENT IN PLAY: You'll have us in your head until you're dead. STUDENT IN PLAY: And you'll see us over and over and over again as you saw us in the school cafeteria. STUDENTS IN PLAY: Again, again, again, again, again! (Bong chimes) STUDENT IN PLAY: Oh, God! LEE HOCHBERG: The play is targeted directly at troubled students, says Ribbon of Promise founder Dennis Murphy, Springfield's fire chief. DENNIS MURPHY: It principally is for the would-be shooter, the one or two or three persons that we think are literally in every school, that have considered suicide, that have considered mass splash acts of violence. The message is for them: It's not worth the price. LEE HOCHBERG: Ribbon of Promise has been deluged with requests for ribbons since the Colorado tragedy from people supporting the group's anti-violence mission. Hopeful but saddened verse fills its computer mailbox. SPOKESPERSON: The children run. The children hide. Pray to God that they could just go outside. Please make it stop. Please make it stop. Bang, bang, bang. Pop, pop, pop. LEE HOCHBERG: The organization hopes to set up new chapters nationwide. Still, its most powerful influence may be its most controversial. In a rural hunting and fishing town with many gun advocates, it's staked out a position in favor of gun control. Fire Chief Murphy supports a law under debate in the state legislature that would hold adults liable for failing to secure firearms. Proponents say the law might have kept Kip Kinkel away from his family's guns. DENNIS MURPHY: They weren't locked up. They were just wide open. There was no restricted access at all, and the net result is what you witnessed at Thurston High School. LEE HOCHBERG: Another bill would allow authorities to hold students like Kinkel 72 hours for evaluation if found with a gun. The federal support team's John Ganz agrees guns are the issue. JOHN GANZ: Things are lethal now. You know, we try to say that it's our right to have and bear arms, and we end up with Springfield, Thurston High School, and Littleton. I think we have to get rid of guns. We have to get rid of them in schools; we have to get rid of them in homes. LEE HOCHBERG: But the gun control message has found lukewarm acceptance in Springfield. PERSON SINGING: Where have all the children gone? LEE HOCHBERG: In July, a local TV station said it couldn't air this public service announcement that called for an end to gun-related violence because it would rub salt in the community's wounds. PERSON SINGING: Gone to graveyards one by one oh, when will we ever learn? LEE HOCHBERG: And even some victims of the shooting spree don't want to see more restrictions put on guns. JESSE WALLEY: No, I think we should be able to use them and understand them. You go out hunting, and if you've never had a chance to use a gun before, you're going to end up hurting yourself or someone else. LEE HOCHBERG: 17-year-old Jesse Walley says he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. His mother, Mona, does support the proposed 72-hour evaluation period for students with guns, but says in this hunting town, guns and kids are not an inherently bad mix. MONA WALLEY: You can build a strong family bond or strong manly bond with your son that way. LEE HOCHBERG: The issue isn't going away. Since the Colorado shooting, two Springfield students have been charged with threatening to blow up a local school, and another fired his BB Gun at students on campus. Amidst the turmoil, some in the community are seeking meaning in these artistic impressions of the tragedy on its first anniversary-- artwork done by Springfield students themselves. (music in background) Psychologists say the town's nightmare is nowhere near ended. Retraumatization continuing with the anniversary and upcoming court trial for the student suspect could last another two to four years. |
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