Who are the terrorists ? The bullies, those reacting to the bullies, or both ? Where were the adults & did they turn a blind eye/ear to the bullying

Alaska town among four communities unnerved by school plots
By Rachel D'Oro - April 25, 2006
The Associated Press
NORTH POLE, Alaska – The arrests of six boys accused of planning an assault on their school has gripped this small Alaska town with an unsettling epiphany: If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
As the nation last week remembered the 13 victims of the Columbine High School massacre, authorities say similar plots were being discussed in at least four small towns in Alaska, Kansas, Mississippi and Washington.
The North Pole seventh-graders, all around 13 years old, had the attack planned down to the smallest detail, authorities said. The boys would first knock out the school's power and telephone systems, giving them time to stab and shoot teachers they didn't like and students who picked on them and then escape from the town of 1,600 just outside Fairbanks.
In all four alleged plots, authorities were tipped off by other young people and students were arrested.
The six in North Pole, arrested Saturday, could face charges of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder. Authorities found weapons in their homes, said Mayor Jeff Jacobson, who also teaches sixth-grade math and language arts at the 500-pupil school.
"I was shocked and then heartbroken," Jacobson said during a lunch break in his classroom Monday. "I saw one of them led away in handcuffs, this little boy."
Parents waiting to pick up their children after school said they were deeply shaken.
"We thought we were in a bubble," said Cindy Slingerland as she waited outside the school with her husband, Mark, for their 13-year-old daughter, Jenny. "Nothing ever happens here. This is by far the biggest scare for my children."
In Kansas, Washington and Mississippi, residents were feeling the same gut-wrenching blow.
Five boys in Riverton, Kan., were charged Monday with threatening to carry out a shooting spree at their high school last Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the Columbine massacre.
In Mississippi, two Pearl Junior High School students were arrested Sunday night and charged with making threatening statements about classmates on the popular teen Web site Xanga and warning students not to go to school on May 1. Pearl Police Chief Bill Slade said the students used the name of Luke Woodham, who is serving a life sentence for a 1997 shooting rampage that killed his mother and two people at Pearl High School.
In Puyallup, Wash., a 16-year-old was charged Monday in an alleged plot to shoot people at his school. In an instant message to a fellow student, the teen wrote about an attack and suicide "to finally go out in a blaze of hatred and fury," sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.
Fears of another attack also rattled Minnesota's Red Lake High School, where a 16-year-old killed seven people and himself last spring. On Tuesday, The Star Tribune of Minneapolis quoted a letter sent to parents by interim Principal Brent Colligan saying investigators were looking into information that a "group of students were threatening to form some sort of an assault on the Red Lake High School."
For Alaskans, the arrests in North Pole — where a main road is called Santa Claus Lane and the light poles are curved and striped like candy canes — jogged memories of a school plot nine years earlier.
In 1997, Evan Ramsey opened fire with a 12-gauge shotgun as students assembled in a high school lobby, killing a principal and 16-year-old classmate in Bethel, a southwestern Alaska town of 6,000. Ramsey, then 16, is now serving a 198-year prison term.
In the North Pole case, authorities have said another child told a parent that rumors were circulating about a plot, and that parent went to police.
Nine other students at the school, including at least one girl, were suspended for withholding information and will not be allowed to return to school until authorities have completed the investigation.
School officials, meanwhile, tried to assure parents that their children were safe Monday. They stressed that no weapons were ever found on campus or in the nearby woods. A police officer patrolled the halls, and extra counselors were brought in to help students.
"It has been surprisingly calm," said Wayne Gerke, an assistant superintendent with the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.
Adults, perhaps, are having a tougher time shaking the anxiety than their children. The students initially reacted with fear, but by Monday streamed out of the school entrance, giggling and elbowing each other.
"I feel fine, I feel safe," 14-year-old Cabe Harris said as he climbed into the front seat next to his mother Jo Harris. "This is a nice place."
source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002952434_webschoolplots25.html
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Five students arrested in foiled southeast Kansas school shooting
MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press
RIVERTON, Kan. - Five teenage boys accused of plotting to kill other students in a shooting rampage at their southeast Kansas high school were arrested Thursday after details of the alleged scheme appeared on the Web site MySpace.com.
Cherokee County sheriff's deputies found guns, ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one of the suspects, Sheriff Steve Norman said. In two of the suspects' school lockers, authorities found documents about firearms and references to Armageddon, he said.
All five suspects were arrested at their homes, some as early as 12:30 a.m. Charges were not immediately filed, and the names of the suspects had not been released.
Norman said he would seek charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder against the young men, who range in age from 16 to 18.
Attorney General Phill Kline said in a news release that his office was taking over the prosecution at the request of the Cherokee County attorney. He planned to discuss the case during a 6 p.m. CDT news conference after meeting with law enforcement and the prosecutor.
Deputies' interviews with the suspects indicated they planned to wear black trench coats and disable the school's camera system before starting the attack between noon and 1 p.m. Thursday, Norman said. The suspects apparently had been plotting since the beginning of the school year, he said.
"What the resounding theme is: They were actually going to do this," Norman said.
He said officials at Riverton High School, which has about 270 students, began investigating Tuesday after learning that a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com.
Elementary School Principal Keith Wilson, who was standing guard at the door of the school while pupils were inside for after-school activities, said nothing like this has happened at the school in his 46 years living in Riverton.
"But if you don't think it can happen in your town, it can," he said. "I don't think you can ever really prepare for something like this."
The message discussed the significance of April 20, which is Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School attack in Colorado, in which two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher, wounded 24 others, then committed suicide.
"The message, it was brief, but it stated that there was going to be a shooting at the Riverton school and that people should wear bulletproof vests and flak jackets," Norman said in a telephone interview.
A message left with a spokeswoman for Myspace.com was not immediately returned.
School officials identified the student who posted the message and talked to several of his friends, Norman said.
But Riverton school district Superintendent David Walters said the significance of the threat didn't become clear until Wednesday night, after a woman in North Carolina who had chatted with one of the suspects on Myspace.com contacted authorities in her state, who contacted the Cherokee County sheriff's department. The woman had received more specific information that there would be about a dozen potential victims, at least one of whom was a staff member.
Norman said some potential victims were popular students and that the suspects, whom he described as "different," may have been bullied.
"I think there was probably some bullying, name calling, chastising," he said.
Holly Thornton, 18, who works at the Riverton Quik-Stop across the street from the school where she graduated last year, said she was shaken up when she got word of the plot.
"I think this is terrible," she said. "I was terrified for my sister because she's in eighth grade."
Riverton, along what once was the famed Route 66 in southeast Kansas, is a tiny, unincorporated area in near the Missouri line. It has a convenience store and no real industry to speak of aside from its main landmark, an Empire District Electric Co. power plant.
Norman said the suspects' parents were not aware of the plot.
In interviews with sheriff's deputies, the potential victims said some of the suspects had threatened them at school, Norman said. He also said investigators had learned the suspects were computer buffs who liked violent video games.
Walters said he visited the school Thursday to talk to students and staff.
"I specifically asked a girl if she felt safe and she said, 'Yes.'"
Barbara Gibson, a junior at the high school, said her classmates didn't seem too bothered by the threat during the day.
"A lot of people just talked about it," she said. "But there wasn't much reaction."

Associated Press Writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.
source: http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/14389311.htm
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Police arrest 6 boys in plot
NORTH POLE: School was target for alleged murder conspiracy.
By TATABOLINE BRANT
Anchorage Daily News

Published: April 23, 2006
Last Modified: April 23, 2006 at 03:02 AM
Six seventh-grade boys, whom police said may have been out for revenge because they were being picked on, were in custody Saturday in North Pole on suspicion they plotted to bring guns and knives to school and kill teachers and students they didn't like.
The boys -- not named because of their ages -- were taken to a Fairbanks Youth Facility and face first-degree conspiracy to commit murder charges, authorities said.
The arrests culminate a tense, weeklong investigation that involved a number of police agencies and that gripped the small town of 1,600. Events during the week stirred numerous parents to keep their children home from North Pole Middle School, school officials said.
"I think all of us were horrified that anybody would be thinking to kill someone else," said the town's mayor, Jeff Jacobson, who also teaches sixth-graders at the school. "This is a wake-up call for all of us that we need to keep the channels of communication open with our kids."
The investigation began with a tip to North Pole police Monday from a concerned parent, who had heard about the murder plot from a child. Police immediately notified school officials and by that evening, 12 students were suspended.
The plot was to be executed the following day, according to a statement released Saturday by North Pole Police Chief Paul Lindhag.
Police speculated the boys were driven by motives ranging from being picked on by other students to disliking staff and students, according to the statement.
"This plan included the disabling of the school's telephone and power system, setting an allotted amount of time to remain in the school to kill their victims, and their escape route from the school and North Pole area," the statement said.
In the days following the suspensions, police conducted dozens of interviews and searched the school and surrounding grounds for weapons. Jacobson said no weapons were found on students at the school or in any area near the school. He said he couldn't say for sure if the boys had access to weapons.
School principal Ernie Manzie said in a telephone interview Saturday that the weapons search was done as a precaution.
He said news of the murder plot has been understandably unnerving for parents, students and faculty. In order to further calm fears, a police officer will be stationed at the middle school for the remaining four weeks of classes, Manzie said. An extra safety monitor has also been added to the school.
"We have really tried to stress with the parents that we believe the school is safe," he said.
Jacobson said attendance started to drop off Wednesday and that by Thursday about 10 percent of the middle school's 500 students were staying home. Teachers worked with parents to ensure the students didn't fall behind, Jacobson said.
Jacobson said he thought news of the arrests would reassure parents that it is safe to send their children to school. He said the school and police did a great job handling the tip.
"We had a system in place and it worked," he said.
North Pole is about a 15-minute drive outside of Fairbanks, but has its own culture, apart from the neighboring city. Tourists know the Christmas-themed town as home of the Santa Claus House -- a sprawling gift shop with a giant Saint Nick statue along the highway.
Some of the people who live in North Pole work at the nearby Eielson Air Force Base or Fort Wainwright, or at the local oil refinery, which sends jet fuel to Anchorage along the Alaska Railroad.
Conrad Gonzalez, who taught high school social studies in North Pole for about nine years, described the town as religious, generous and more conservative than Fairbanks.
"There was a relaxed atmosphere, more so than I've seen at larger schools, whether in Anchorage or Fairbanks," Gonzalez said in a telephone interview Saturday. "It was a very low key, friendly ... familial."
Not all of the students initially suspended are believed to be involved in the murder plot, but they will not be allowed back to school until the police investigation is complete, Lindhag told The Associated Press.
Jacobson said the parents of the six boys in custody have been cooperative with authorities, allowing police to question their youngsters and making sure the children had supervision while suspended from school.
"I think they were in just as much shock as everyone else," he said.
The North Pole arrests came just days after five Kansas teenagers suspected of planning a shooting rampage at their high school were arrested Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the Columbine massacre. But North Pole police said their investigation revealed no connection to any other school tragedy.

Daily News reporter Tataboline Brant can be reached at tbrant@adn.com or 257-4321. Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

source: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/crime/story/7656452p-7568021c.html
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Teen put classmates on hit list, police say
Princeton: Student charged with making terroristic threats
08:58 AM CDT on Friday, April 28, 2006
By TIARA M. ELLIS / The Dallas Morning News
PRINCETON – A Princeton teenager was charged Thursday with making terroristic threats based on a hit list he had and e-mails and cellphone text messages he sent to other students, Princeton police and school officials said.
The 16-year-old sophomore, not identified because of his age, remained in the Collin County Juvenile Detention Center on Thursday.
He was arrested Wednesday at an alternative education center in McKinney, where he'd been attending classes after expulsion from Princeton High School, Princeton Police Chief Jeff Barnett said.
Police and Princeton High School officials met Thursday afternoon with the 20 students and two staff members on the hit list, as well as with the students' parents.
Letters about the case were sent home with other students, Princeton schools Superintendent Philip Anthony said.
"The threat was not specific. But prior incidents [with this student] led us to think this might be a more credible threat," Mr. Anthony said. "As always, parents need to be on the lookout during and after school hours."
The same student was arrested on April 12 after a fight at Princeton High.
He wasn't supposed to be on campus because he'd been expelled and was taking classes at the alternative school, Mr. Anthony said. Because of the student's age, school and police officials would not discuss the reasons for that expulsion or whether there were any previous arrests.
Princeton High, which has one resource officer, was on "heightened security," with regular police patrols, while the student was being investigated. After his arrest Wednesday, security returned to normal, officials said.
Police were first notified of the case by students who received threats through text messages and e-mails, Chief Barnett said.
"We believe he was physically capable of carrying out the threats he made, so we wanted to make sure parents and the school district were notified," Chief Barnett said.
There was mention of a firearm in one of the threats, but no guns were found in the teen's home, which was searched Wednesday with a parent's permission, Chief Barnett said.
Police investigators plan to continue talking to students and parents at the school to try to determine a motive. Chief Barnett said the fight may have been one motive but that he believes there is more than one.
"It only takes one student. And we want to take any indication [of danger] seriously," Mr. Anthony said.
At Princeton High on Thursday, sophomore Zane Barns said rumors about the case were spreading fast, even after the letters were sent home to parents. .
"I heard the list had 100 people on it. Supposedly he had a gun and police had not caught him yet," Zane, 16, said after meeting his mother at the car.
His mother, Renee Raia, said her son wouldn't be returning until the school has addressed the situation in a meeting with all students' parents, not just those of students named on the list.
The Princeton school district has five schools and a special-programs center that serve 2,500 students in Princeton, which is east of McKinney. Princeton High has 750 students.
E-mail tellis@dallasnews.com
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/042806dnmetthreat.78e7d88b.html
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What is the Brownwood Independent School District policy on Bullying ? Why is this portion of the equation "not" being talked about by Brownwood "talking heads" ? Are they too busy making fun of self esteem issues ? You just need to listen !

Resources:

http://kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/emotion/bullies.html

http://www.safechild.org/bullies.htm