For parents who indulge their children in respect for rights and freedom and as well as those who engage in Christmas fire crackers at this time of the year despite security warnings, this story may guide you, just as the American government is finding it unpleasant in handling the rising crim e-wave in gun handling and possession among young scholars in that God’s own country.
Another fatal school shooting had occurred in that country on the eve of the first anniversary of the December 14, 2012, shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre, in which an embattled 20-year-old Newtown, Connecticut, United States of America resident, Adams Lanza, shot dead his mother Nancy, and later 20 first-grade pupils, teachers and six adults.
In the latest incident, an avenging High School student, Karl Pierson, Centennial, had reportedly opened fire in his Colorado school in Denver suburb of Centennial, in a suicide mission, launched at a faculty colleague.
A report said that on the eve of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook School massacre, Pierson had walked into the 70 classrooms 2, 229-students population Arapahoe High School, openly brandishing a gun.
However, in a jiffy, before anyone could say Jack Robinson, the suspect had shot and killed himself with the gun, police report confirmed.
The report added that 18-year-old Pierson had succeeded in injuring an unarmed 15-year-old female colleague who underwent surgery and was in a critical condition afterwards, after which he shot himself dead.
It stressed that several witnesses in the Colorado school had stated that they saw and heard Pierson looking for a faculty member apparently in a revenge suicide mission.
“Her blood splattered on another girl, and police initially believed she had been shot, too. But she and everyone else were unharmed at least physically. Some of them were treated for panic attacks”, the report said.
It quoted the police as describing the deceased as “the last person, a brilliant student I would expect to shoot up a high school. He was honestly incredibly humble and down to earth. He was a little geeky but in a charming way,”
The report recalled in history the frequent school shootings in America schools involving students killing their fellow students in frenzy and without any explained cause before committing suicide.
In respect of the latest shooting, the attacker had reportedly asked other students about the whereabouts of the man he was looking for but he missed his target when he fired.
“Pierson had fired at the man but missed. He was so shaken up, he felt the wind hit, out of the shotgun just blew his hair out but it didn’t hit him. It was that scary for him”, he was reportedly quoted.
It stated that while authorities hunted for the student gunman inside the school, students were locked in their classrooms.
“We were having fun and laughing and then, all of a sudden, we heard a really loud bang,” the 15-year-old said.
“My teacher asked what it was and then we heard two more and we all just got up and screamed and ran into a sprinkler system room”, another pupil said.
Inside the windowless room were five students and two teachers. “We were shaking, we were crying, we were freaking out. I had a girl biting my arm.”
Another report said “dozens of students could be seen walking away from the school, with their hands in the air. Some stood in lines at what appeared the high school track field, where they appeared to be undergoing police pat-downs.
“Students were then taken by bus to a nearby church where they were reunited with their families. They had to leave their cars in the school parking lot and their belongings in the classrooms overnight”, the report said.
It quoted a witness who described the incident as an “all-too-familiar sequence, where you have gunshots and parents racing to the school and unspeakable horror in a place of learning.”