By Eric Shoemaker
Retired Law Enforcement Executive
This article is brought to you by The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI). Visit their website: www.riskinstitute.org
INTRODUCTION
Given the events played out daily across the globe, the prospect of a terrorist gang targeting a school full of children, which at one time was unthinkable, has become reality. Since September 11, 2001 when four teams of al Qaida operatives hijacked a like number of commercial airliners and flew them toward targets in New York and Washington, DC our lives have been forever changed. The specter of global terrorism, the type of terrorism plaguing the rest of the world for years, had been visited upon the American homeland, and represents a threat with wide ranging implications.
Since 9/11, security professionals and school administrators have been struggling with the likelihood of a terrorist attack directed at American schools as well as effective strategies that will mitigate targeting of that nature. The prospect of a terrorist event at a school has high emotional appeal. However this seems to beg the question: What is the likelihood of this type of violence occurring in U.S. schools? More foundational inquiries need be made to determine who is most likely to perpetrate the violence, and how the operation will be carried out.
SCHOOL TERRORISM: AN OVERVIEW
Violence occurring at any type of school has always been viewed through a different lens than the same phenomenon occurring in other venues. Almost universally, schools are expected to be safe havens; places built on sacred ground for all those who study or teach there. Unfortunately crime and violence visits its victims where it will. Crime occurs in schools, property is stolen, and people fall victim to every type of crime perpetrated in the general populace. History tells us that massacres also have occurred on school property and children have been the victims. Space does not permit a thorough survey of this phenomenon; however, there are a broad range of lessons learned from a short survey of school massacres and terrorism. For purposes of this paper, a brief examination will be made of four case studies in school massacres/terrorism taken from events in the United States and abroad. The cases surveyed here include incidents at the Bath Consolidated School, Bath, Michigan on May 18, 1927; at Columbine High School, Columbine, Colorado on April 20, 1999; at School Number One at Beslan, Russia on September 1, 2004; and at West Nickel Mines (Amish) School, in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania on October 2, 2006. These incidents were selected to portray the historical nature of violence and terrorism in schools; the type and motivations of those who perpetrated these events; and the role that Islamist terrorists, if any, are likely to play in U.S. school risk management calculus.
The events at Bath and Columbine have been documented through official inquiries that have resulted in sufficient information to satisfy most scholarly researchers. The killings at Nickel Mines occurred less than 90 days before to this paper was written. They are not as well documented through official sources at this point and research material is limited largely to newspaper and media reporting. The Russian commission’s much delayed report on the Beslan massacre was again delayed in September of 2006.1 Details of the Beslan massacre is therefore also limited to media reports and the research of authors such as John Giduck in his recent book Terror at Beslan: A Russian Tragedy with Lessons for America’s Schools; Lynn Milburn Lansford’s Beslan: Shattered Innocence, and Michael and Chris Dorn’s Innocent Targets, When Terrorism Comes to School.
CASE STUDIES
The Bath Consolidated School Case 2,3
One of the most infamous school massacres in U.S. history occurred on May 18, 1927, at the Bath Consolidated School in Bath, Michigan. The perpetrator was not a team of trained terrorists, but a 55 year old farmer and school board member named Andrew Kehoe. Kehoe felt he was loosing his farm as a result of increased school taxes plus his savings had been depleted while paying for treatment of his wife Nellie’s chronic illness. Over time, Kehoe had mined nearly every vital area of the school facility as well as his own farm buildings with a WWI surplus dynamite-type explosive named Pyrotol. On May 17, 1927, Kehoe killed his wife Nellie and loaded his pickup truck with Pyrotol and metal debris. At 8:45 AM on May 18th, Kehoe detonated the explosives at his farm and headed to the school where he would set off more explosives killing over 40 students and teachers, including School Superintendent Emory Huyck, Postmaster Glen Smith, and himself.
The Columbine High School Case 4
At 11:21 AM on April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris began their assault on Columbine High School in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado. Both Harris and Klebold were seniors at the school. They were armed with several firearms and explosives. Their goal was simple: Kill as many of their fellow students and teachers as possible.
Their plan was to enter the cafeteria and detonate two 20-pound propane bombs inside and shoot everyone that survived the explosions. They took their first life when they encountered two students having lunch on the school lawn. Upon entering the school, they proceeded to the cafeteria with the propane bombs but the bombs failed to detonate. This apparently forced them to go to an alternative plan. For the next three quarters of an hour, they moved inside the school firing at students and teachers, killing and wounding as they went. Teacher Dave Sanders encountered the pair and was severely wounded from a shotgun blast. Sanders bled to death before medical attention reached him.
After a second failed attempt to detonate the propane bombs in the cafeteria by gunfire, they successfully set off a number of fire bombs. After returning to the library, they engaged police through the windows as they were protecting paramedics tending to the dead and wounded outside. Apparently at this point, Klebold and Harris decided they had accomplished their mission and turned their weapons on themselves. Forty seven minutes after they killed for the first time, they themselves lay dead.
Beslan School Number One Case 5
At approximately 8:00 AM on September 1, 2004, an unknown number of men and women armed with Russian model assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and many wearing explosive-laden belts took over 400 hostages on the opening day of school at the Number One School in Beslan, North Ossetia. North Ossetia is a Russian province bordered by Chechnya and the Georgian separatist province of South Ossetia. The Russians had fought two inclusive and very costly wars (1994 -1996 and 1996 - ?) with the largely Sunni Muslim Chechnyan separatists and at the time of the school incident their insurgency remained a very active issue.
Following an initial shootout with Russian police, sketchy reports indicated that one parent was killed and nine were wounded. One terrorist and two police officers also lay mortally wounded. The school building was immediately surrounded by Russian troops that included a contingent of army special forces. The terrorists had assembled all the hostages in the school gymnasium. They demanded a meeting with North Ossetia President Alexander Dzasckhov and two others; release of all jailed Chechnyan fighters and the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Chechnya. Except for demands for meeting Dzasckhov, they were the same as those of another band of Chechnyan terrorists made almost two years before6 at the Moscow (Nord-Ost) Dubrovka Theatre after taking about a thousand people hostage.
On the third and last day of the siege, during a truce to recover bodies of the victims of the gunfire, the terrorists set off their explosives in the gymnasium causing most of the roof to collapse, killing several hostages. The Russian commander also ordered his special forces troops to immediately attack. The pandemonium that followed resulted in the deaths of nearly 400 hostages, Russian police and military; 20 terrorists; and about 377 more were wounded.7 The Chechnyans attempted to flee through the streets of Beslan. Several barricaded themselves in a nearby residence which was quickly leveled through direct fire from Russian tanks. The only reported survivor of the hostage takers, a 26 year old Chechnyan named Nurpashi Kulayev, is serving a life sentence.8
The West Nickel Mines (Amish) School Case
At approximately 10:00 AM on October 2, 2006, a bulk milk tanker driver named Charles Carl Roberts IV pulled up to the one room West Nickel Mines Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Although not Amish, Roberts was a resident of the area. He helped his wife get their children ready for school, and saw them off at the bus stop for the last time. Although sketchy, it is believed that slightly after 10:00 AM, he entered the school armed with an automatic pistol and shotgun and took the children and teacher hostage. He released everyone but a group of young girls aged 6–13 years old. Pennsylvania State Police believe that Roberts planned the crime for a week. From the note he left behind, it is believed he had planned to sexually assault the girls and execute them before he committed suicide. The authorities were called at 10:30 AM, and 17 minutes later Roberts started shooting the hostages. By approximately 11:00 AM, 6 girls aged 7-13 were dead and 5 girls of the same age range lay seriously wounded. Roberts too lay dead, having taken his own life.
THE PERPETRATORS: GOALS AND MOTIVATIONS
Except for those involved in the Beslan school massacre, the perpetrators were all members of the victim’s community in one way or another. From the colonial period to the Bath Consolidated School case in 1927, through the 2006 West Nickel Mines case each is a representative sample of the type of individuals that have perpetrated school violence in the United States.
Those who perpetrated the events of the case studies can be regarded as terrorists, criminals, or plain murderers; because they are. Additionally, each of the American examples represents a personal agenda, versus an organizational or political cause. One exception is a Beslan-like incident that occurred during “Pontiac’s Rebellion” at Enoch Brown School near what is now Greencastle in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. On a late summer morning on July 26, 1764, several Native American warriors burst into a colonial school, shot and scalped the teacher and about 10 of his students.
Although the precise Native American goals and motivations that lead to the Brown School example are unknown today, they may be the closest to our present Islamist adversaries. The French loss in the French and Indian War lead to British domination of the disputed areas in Pennsylvania and to the West. The Native American allies of the French were unhappy and resonated with a native visionary, who was known simply as the “Delaware Prophet.” He preached ardently for a return to traditional ways and for the rejection of contact with the British. This platform was soon was adopted by the then undistinguished Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac (c.1720-1769), who was known primarily for his oratorical skills and as a supporter of the French in the recent war.9 His message found sympathetic ears among the tribes and there is little doubt that the warriors who ravaged the Pennsylvania countryside and attacked the school were trying terrorize the British colonists and drive them out of what they considered their ancestral homeland.
THE ISLAMIST JIHAD
The Islamist jihad or “struggle” is largely overblown as a generalized threat to Americans and the American economic, political, and cultural infrastructures. On 9/11, they attacked targets, one of which Ramzi Yousef and a handful of Islamists failed to destroy on February 26, 1993. The Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the White House were, among others, symbols of globalization, military strength, and “The” global seat of democracy. These are type of symbols that Islamists routinely target in the West. If there is any good news to this terrorist phenomenon, it is that Islamists of this bent have yet to demonstrate they represent a threat to American schools on American soil. Al Qaida is a Sunni terrorist organization that has never publicly threatened schools and children. To date, al Qaida appears to view both women and children as collateral damage in jihad. The women and children killed at the Twin Towers and elsewhere during the September 11, 2001 attack were not the targets, but the attackers considered them collateral damage along with the destruction of the symbols targeted in the attack. The Islamists that attacked the Beslan School represent a Chechen military insurgency that was, and is, opposed to what they consider a Russian occupation of their homeland. For these Islamists, it is a matter of combating occupation of their country as it was for the Native Americans in my earlier example. No claims have been made in that context by Islamists regarding the American homeland. By far, it is al Qaida’s demonstration of its reach during 9/11 that has promoted the idea of its capability to launch subsequent attacks on the United States homeland.
THE LIKELY TERRORIST THREAT TO U.S. SCHOOLS
In determining the likelihood of a threat, the best indicators include historical precedence, stated or known intentions, demonstrated capabilities, and/or confirmed information supporting likelihood. With terrorist acts yielding horrendous results appearing daily in newspaper and media reporting from Baghdad, Kabul, and elsewhere, it is hard not to envision a worst case scenario occurring in an American school as being only a matter of time. On an emotional level, no matter how unlikely, and perhaps because an al Qaida or Beslan-type attack on an American school or schools is so unthinkable, it becomes the first of all fears. But, just because something is unthinkable, does not mean it is likely.
When looking at examples of school massacres in the United States, there is greater likelihood that the threat comes from a pair like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris who had a series of problems, plus access to firearms. Other high likelihood rests with lone disturbed individuals such as Andrew Kehoe or Charles Carl Roberts IV. Kehoe felt defined by ownership of his farm, and the prospect of losing it meant he was lost as well. Roberts was haunted by the demons of his distant past that he felt were resurfacing. The result in both cases was the loss of innocent lives.
Mitigating the risk of terrorist targeting of American schools is an exercise of dispassionately determining the greatest threat and then devising strategies to mitigate and manage that threat; be it individuals armed with firearms, explosives, or toxins that can be introduced to the victims through water, air, or food. The Columbine Review Commission report to Colorado Governor Bill Owens is a detailed account of the events and lessons learned. 10 It contains valuable insight that by extension can provide a framework for action to combat violence of the type that, to many, is the first of all fears.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric Shoemaker is a retired Public Safety Administrator with over 23 years of service on college and university campuses. He is an author of over two dozen publications on law enforcement and public safety topics. He is also a retired active and reserve U.S. Army officer. He can be contacted via email at jjackoe@comcast.net.
WORKS CITED
1. MosNews.com, Official Russian Commission Delays Report on Beslan Tragedy. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/09/21/beslanreportdelay.shtml
2. Monty Ellsworth. The Bath School Disaster, 1927.
3. Grant Parker. Mayday: The History of a Village Holocaust, 1980.
4. Erickson, William H., Chairman. The Report of Governor Bill Owens’ Columbine Review Commission. May 2001. http://www.state.co.us/columbine/Columbine_20Report_WEB.pdf
5. MosNews.com. School Siege in North Ossetia, http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/school.shtml. 9/21/06.
6. October 23, 2002.
7. MosNews.com. School Siege in North Ossetia., http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/school.shtml, 9/21/06
8. Mosnews.com. Beslan School Siege Suspect Found Guilty of Terrorism. http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/05/16/beslanverdict.shtml, 5/16/06.
9. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h598.html, Wars and Battles, Pontiac’s Rebellion, 1763-1766. Accessed December 27, 2006.
10. http://www.state.co.us/columbine/Columbine_20Report_WEB.pdf
In January 2006, PERI held a free online symposium to explore strategies for addressing violence in our nation’s schools. The program, entitled “Confronting Violence in Our Schools: Planning, Response, and Recovery,” offered practical advice for dealing with school violence — not just the high profile incidents that make headlines but the real issues of school violence that schools and communities face everyday.
The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) is a nonprofit research organization that provides education and training resources on topics related to risk management and emergency management. PERI’s website, www.riskinstitute.org, offers free E-Training programs and a Publications, Tools, and Resources library with information on emergency planning and response, disaster recovery, school safety, workers’ compensation, and other key topics in risk management. PERI’s also maintains a national database of public sector liability and workers’ compensation claims data for benchmarking and performance measurement. The Data Exchange is a voluntary program that allows participating organizations to compare their liability and workers’ compensation losses with their peers and learn from other jurisdictions.
