The Case of Tulare School Shooting Threat

15 year old student arrested for a school shooting threat in Tulare California October 1st. Spokesmen for the police Sgt. Jon Hamlin said “the investigation is preliminary and ongoing, but detectives believe they have arrested the only suspect in the case. ” The police were tipped off by concerned students, where a Snapchat post was screenshotted, and shared on twitter and Facebook telling the students that they should not show up to school the next day, because there may be a shooting. This is no rare occurrence for Tulare county school district. Visalia Times Delta article written by Sheyanne N Romero says “there were roughly 11 school shooting threats made at Tulare county schools. ” This current threat occurred at Mission Oak High School in Tulare California.

When asked what the climate of the classroom from the students perspective head of the English department, teacher Laurie Jones says “I feel the overall climate of the classroom is positive. We talk, we move forward, we share our thoughts and we hope for the best. One of the reasons I love working with teenagers is that they are tough. They can get through anything. ” This is no new thing to Mission Oak they have had previous school shooting threats, and even bomb threats, but the staff and police have all responded great, and have not had an actual incident. That is not how it goes for every school though. For schools like Pixley elementary they have had to go through procedure before because of immediate threats, and they have been successful because of their extensive training.

Pixley elementary teacher Isabel Antunes says “Well we had one from the police when they were chasing somebody, and there was a shooting in pixley so we had to get in procedure and run to the closest room possible. ” All procedures, and training wet well though and no one on campus was hurt. The overall act of making threats to schools is not exclusive to high school, and the students that go there. Isabel Antunes spoke on how Pixley elementary, which is part of Tulare County last school year received bomb threats not from a student, but from a librarian at Pixley middle school. The FBI was called in for that incident, and Isabel Antunes says that “the incident, made the students very aware of what was going on. It also made the parents and students scared to go to school. ” The difference between elementary and high school students is interesting. The high school students are more accustomed to this, and can cope better with it and move on. The elementary students have a lot more fear when it comes to the situation due to the lack of awareness due to their innocence.

The problem of school shooting threats is something that many would have never seen 20 years ago. Both teachers said that when they became a teacher they did not even think of school shootings at all, and that they would have to be trained for things like this. In society today though the topic of school shootings is more prevalent than it has ever been.