Deja vu from the headline files of The Washington Times:
Jan. 6, 1995: “Antar A. Hall, 16, a Cardozo student, was shot and killed by a 14-year-old inside the school. The freshman used a .380-caliber pistol given to him by another Cardozo student.”
April 2, 2003: “A 16-year-old student at Cardozo High School in Northwest was shot in the leg yesterday by another student during an argument inside the building. A 15-year-old student was taken into custody at about 12:15 p.m. in a basement hallway near the school’s cafeteria.”
Tuesday’s school shooting is proof positive that even though the nation’s capital is sporting a spanking-new image complete with a new convention center as testament to its real estate renaissance all is not well below the surface.
For if you think that this week’s shooting at Cardozo High School is an isolated incident, think again.
Officials have not released the names of the students involved, but said the victim was treated for a leg wound and released from a hospital. The 15-year-old suspect surrendered and was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. He was detained by a D.C. Superior Court judge pending a hearing next week.
Where have we heard this before?
“D.C. school officials said yesterday that they are considering ways to improve security in public schools after a shooting inside Cardozo High School.”
“Superintendent Paul L. Vance said yesterday that he would ‘redouble efforts’ to secure city schools.”
Just change the name. Franklin Smith, Gen. Julius Becton, Arlene Ackerman. All D.C. school superintendents under varied forms of school-governance experiments have failed their 67,000 students miserably.
That recycled criticism applies to the school board and the school administrators, as well as those on the D.C. Council and in the executive branch with oversight responsibilities. Given all sorts of latitude and resources, D.C. officials still mismanage, miseducate and do not ensure the safety of their students or staffers.
Remember when some wacko wonk even suggested that armed security guards be stationed at every schoolhouse door after a spate of shootings on or near school grounds during the past decade?
But should the fault for these security shortcoming and acts of violence rest simply at the schoolhouse door? Not hardly.
It will require much more than cameras, metal detectors, chained doors and security guards all of which may be necessary to bar the door against the culture of violence and proliferation of deadly weapons that plague American communities.
It doesn’t matter who. It doesn’t matter where.
Only days before the Cardozo shooting, James Parker, 17, a promising all-state junior linebacker at Hylton High School in Dale City, Va., was fatally wounded by a handgun when he apparently went to “tap” it away from a 16-year-old friend who was showing it off, Prince William County police reported.
Detective Dennis Mangan said although police could not disclose any details about the weapon, “it was traced and it was not stolen.” The juvenile suspect was charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless handling of a firearm and possession of a handgun by a person under 18 years of age.
A January 2002 study released by the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, “Kids in the Line of Fire,” indicated that 3,971 children between the ages of 1 and 17 died in handgun violence from 1995 to 1999. One-third of those victims were killed by other children.
The criticism of how the Cardozo student implicated in the latest shooting there was able to get the 22.-caliber handgun into a building with 20 exits raises the larger question of how he obtained the weapon in the first place.
“Oh, you know guns are easy to get,” said one D.C. police officer, who is prohibited by law from giving any details about the recovered weapon. Obviously, it’s too easy for children, but handgun regulation is a loaded political pistol that elected officials would rather turn tail and run from. For his part, Theodore Tuckson, acting executive director of security for the District’s 146 public schools, said no school building is impenetrable as long as there are doors and windows that can be opened.
He is correct. As long as students choose to bring weapons into school to act out their “beefs,” history has demonstrated that authorities are hard-pressed to deter the determined. Investigators said the shooting could be a result of a dispute between rival gangs at the school.
Mr. Tuckson said council members would have to enact legislation for tighter security. Translation: money. Furthermore, school officials would have to talk with several city agencies, including the fire department, if schools are locked and their doors sealed.
However, in light of the deaths that occurred at nightclubs in Chicago and Rhode Island, sealing exit doors in 50-year-old public buildings housing children is a deadly prospect.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ capital-improvement budget cuts out $100,000 this year and $8 million next year that is needed to update and shore up the security system with personnel and new technology, such as secured doors that open automatically when a fire alarm sounds.
Parents, principals and community activists have been demanding more police on the streets, more guards in schools and more metal detectors and security equipment. Most of all, it will take a concerted, coordinated community effort to curtail youth violence. Schools need volunteers to work with students to establish and set a high moral standard and uncompromising civic code that teaches them in no uncertain terms that violence is the wrong way to solve problems, and that in their community it simply will not be tolerated.
Deja vu or not, that is an important message that bears repeating.
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