UC Merced Incident Summary

The reporting party (RP) received a call from mental health psychologist Shannon Salonga from Villa Park High School 18042 East Taft Ave., Villa Park CA 92861 (714) 532-8020 Cell (714) 628-4398. Shannon is resident Olawale's psychologist and sees him at his school. Olawale disclosed during the session that he feels unsafe and bullied by other children in the group home. Olawale revealed that on two different occasions two different kids in the group home have been physically aggressive with him. The names of the two children involved and the dates of incidents were not provided. The Olawale reported that the group home staff always took appropriate action. In one incident a resident ripped up his poster in his bedroom, pushed him off a counter

While the debate and argument over the carry on campus law continues, more and more concerns are surfacing about the jeopardy it could put our nation in. Are students even mature enough for the handling of weapons? Students are not to be trusted with guns and college campus should stay a gun-free zone. Carrying a gun in general requires responsibility that people of a young age sometimes tend not to have. The handling a firearm and a lack of responsibility within a person can be a very dangerous situation. Judgement and maturity of such a young group are things to consider when thinking about the carry on campus law and a student’s capability to make smart choices when handling a weapon can’t be trusted.

In addition to youth and gun crimes, much debate has sparked over whether or not college officials should allow students to carry concealed weapons with them on campus. Renee Montagne has interviewed many people, college students included, in her article, “Texas Lawmakers Aim for Guns on College Campuses” About their opinions of guns on campus. Many disagree, stating that it is a terrible idea, and will lead to gun-related accidents, or mass killings, like the one that took place at Virginia Tech (Texas Lawmakers). Some people, such as Stephen Wright, point out the fact that by simply carrying a legally weapon does not cause mass killings or

The Monash University classroom shooting occurred here in Melbourne after an international student, armed with 6 different weapons, opened fire on his classmates. This resulted in the death of 2 people and injured 5 (Ozanne-Smith, 2004).

Sitting through an hour-long lecture or waiting in line to speak with financial aid are some examples of an average day on campus. It is during these times when students are least expecting tragedy to strike. A student may hear a loud noise and think nothing of it until they realize that noise was the sound of a shooting rampage that has reached their area and by that time it’s usually too late. Campus safety is everyone’s responsibility and remaining on alert is the only way to ensure less people are victimized. One of the first, and most memorable, attacks happened on August 1, 1966. Charles Whitman, a former marine, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at The University of Texas- Austin, then randomly opened fire on the surrounding campus and streets. Over the next 96 minutes, far longer than the average active shooter attack, he shot and killed fifteen people. Included in the death toll was one unborn child, and injured thirty-one others. The incident ended when police reached Whitman and shot him dead. During this event, civilians played a vital role in assisting first responders in the take down of Whitman and Allen Crum, a 40-year-old bookstore manager and retired Air Force tail gunner, accompanied police up the tower in pursuit of Whitman. While Crum was armed, it solely because officers handed him a firearm to assist in Whitman’s take down.

“I fear for my life and the lives of others on campus. I do not believe that this student is mentally sound” (Hoeft). Life is a precious thing; one may not realize how important it is until they are faced with a threat on their mortality. More than thirty of Virginia Tech’s students were faced with that mortality on April 16, 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho murdered them with two semiautomatic handguns, and then he killed himself. Many problems lead to this unfortunate event, and many people seem to blame the school. Lynn Daggett, a Professor at the Gonzaga University School of Law, states, “Schools struggle with whether, when, and how to involve the police, both when students appear to present a threat to others, as in these high profile cases,

Two students are staring at each other after a brutal verbal attack. Other students are listening in on this awesome battle of ‘wits’. Then, a loud bang and screams come from the courtyard of a magnificent building of education. The student on the ground holding on to life by a thread didn’t realize that his opponent was packing heat, and he crossed the line for the last time. Breaking through all of the shooters self-control and causing him to draw a firearm that he was legally allowed to have on

It is my opinion that the lack of security and warning signs overlooked by administration is the chief problem as to how these crimes take place on campuses. Did campus security and school the administrations do enough to keep the students safe? Did fellow classmates and faculty members ignore warning signs of both Whitman and Seung-Hui? And what security changes have been implemented in the event of another unforeseen shooting?

On April 16, 2007, one of the most tragic incidents in the United States occurred on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. Seung- Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech ruthlessly murdered 32 people and wounded 17 others through the usage of firearms in two separate attacks. This incident is considered the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in the history of America. While people still mourn and pray for the victims, this shooting also led to many controversies. Till this day, Cho’s access to firearm and Virginia Tech’s security hazard remains to be controversial. The motive and cause of Cho’s action and what the school could have done in order to prevent this tragic incident will be addressed.

Since those horrible days in 1966 and 2007 there have been at least 6 other major shootings at American College Campuses. Among those six, a custodian shot and killed 7 people while injuring 2 at the California State University on July 12, 1976. Also involved in a horrific shooting, Douglas Pennington was a parent of 2 students of Shepherd University. He killed 2 people before committing suicide. Some say this is reason enough to prohibit the use of guns all together, but there is still a voice that rings out heavily across the Nation- nearly 3 million voices, to be literal. That voice is the N.R.A. (Jost, 2007, 126)

With backpacks in tow and pencils in hand, college students crisscross campus with stress of acing the test, hardly thinking about their safety. This was the case on a clear Tuesday at the University of Texas on September 28th, 2010. Students fled from a mask gunman carrying an AK-47 and shooting randomly around campus. Nineteen-year-old Colton Tooley, wearing a black mask, eventually killed himself in the library. Remarkably, no one else was injured or killed. (MSNBC) This was not the case in 1966 when 16 people where killed with 32 injured by a gunman in the UT clock tower. The debate still wages on to allow concealed guns to be carried on college campus in Texas despite a recent bill that failed to pass. The US Constitutional Second

This is really not the solution to the problem but it will make it more dangerous to live in the university serenity than even before the shooting. A concealed permit for carrying guns by the students or other college staff should not be allowed in any manner as it will make way for possibly more violence on the universities and campuses.

The mainstream media leads many to believe that mass shootings on college campuses are very common, and are in despite need of gun reform. This is actually false information, the truth is that campuses and other schools are among the safest places in America. According to recent studies, the actual homicide rates on campuses are one in one million, considerably less than the nationwide average of fifty-seven million. In addition, other crimes are still proven to be less likely to happen at colleges, rather than in common rural areas. And in most

The school shooting in Roseburg, Oregon was severe. On October 1st, 2015 Thursday 10:38 am at Umpqua Community College (UCC), the gunman went to the school and started shooting students. Many students were killed and injured. The gunman, Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26 years old, had an interest in guns, struggling with mental health issues, and had anger against religious people. This shooting was called, “One of the Deadly mass shootings this year”.

The tragic events at Virginia Tech in April of 2007 and Northern Illinois University in February of 2008 have policymakers, campus officials and citizens looking for solutions to prevent future attacks (Dickerson). Violent shootings that have occurred on a few college campuses in recent years have provoked a debate over