Friday, February 23, 2018

Weapons Found After School Safety Officer Helps Thwart Alleged School Shooting Plot at High School in Whittier Area




A weapons cache confiscated from the home of a 17-year-old who allegedly threatened to shoot up his Whittier-area high school is shown at a sheriff's news conference on Feb. 21, 2018. (Credit: Steve Kuzj / KTLA)


Summary: Authorities have been on high alert due to the recent Florida shooting. Recently in the Los Angeles area another attack was thwarted after Marino Chavez, a school safety officer overheard a student mumble a threat. The student, disgruntled with his peers, planned to carry out a school shooting in 3 weeks. Chavez reported this to administration and the matter was brought to the Los Angeles Police department. The L.A.P.D. searched the family home and found two AR-15 rifles, two handguns and 90 high-capacity magazines unsecured and available to anyone living in the household. The student was arrested on the suspicion of making criminal threats.

Opinion: Since February 14th, there have been 19 school related threats in LA County. Many of these threats after investigation were found to be false claims by students. I believe that it is important for schools to discuss the seriousness of false threats and the consequences that occur. If students are  educated, I believe that this will help authorities limit fake threats from students, and focus on true, lethal threats.


Questions:
1. Should there be further security within schools to prevent attacks like the one planned? If so what should be done to ensure safety?

2. Mental health is often a partial cause for these events, what do you believe should be done in order to limit this occurrence?

Article Link: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/cnn-town-hall-florida-shooting/index.html

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There definitely should be increased security concerning all schools. Considering that anyone can own a gun, no school is safe from the danger of a crazy shooter. However, increasing police and safety inside and outside the school will result in a lessened amount of harm towards students and staff alike. Even though I am in AP Psychology, measuring and knowing the mentality of people is difficult as there are many factors that can change how people answer questions. However, as seen by this case, many shootings occur because a person is unhappy with the his or her own surroundings, resulting in desperation and loss of coherent thinking. We can stop many threats if we are able to bring support to the students who are troubled or in terrible stress.

Anonymous said...

I think the U.S. should invest in security companies and have better equipment around the school, like better cameras. I also think they should have security guards around the school. In this case specifically the security guard was the one who stopped this from becoming something even more serious, so I definitely think we should have more security guards around our schools. I also agree with Alex that we should provide more support to our peers to make sure they are mentally feeling okay. I feel as if the U.S. focuses more on physical health than mental health. The only time someone's mental health is brought up/important is if they're white which I think is unfair. I think the U.S. should focus more one everyone's mental health and start to fund more programs to bring support to everyone.