ABSTRACT

People never w ant to believe that the m urder of innocent people will occur at the school in their community, or worse, at the school w here they w ork or have a child in attendance. Yet the new s tells us that this is an all too great possibility. Between February 1997 and June 1998 there were shootings at six schools th roughout the United States, resulting in 17 deaths and a m ultitude of injuries. In April 1999, shootings at schools in Taber, Alberta, Canada and Littleton, Colorado left 14 dead. These fig­ ures reflect only those incidents caused by students, and do not take into account situations w here the perpetrator was a trespasser on school prop­ erty. They also do no t include incidents w here students have random ly shot and killed teachers and classmates at school-related functions held off campus, such as the May 1998 incident in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.