Commander PK Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 This is nice..... :doh: 5 Kan. Students Arrested in Alleged Plot By MARCUS KABEL Associated Press Writer http://kevxml2adsl.verizon.net/_1_JCSTO104RW6RCH__vzn.dsl/apnws/story.htm?kcfg=apart&feed=ap&sin=D8H42FUO8&qcat=usnews&passqi=&top=1&ran=26925 RIVERTON, Kan. - Five teenage boys accused of plotting a shooting rampage at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre were arrested Thursday after a message authorities said warned of a gun attack appeared on the Web site MySpace.com. Sheriff's deputies found guns, ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one suspect, Sheriff Steve Norman said. Authorities also found documents about firearms and references to Armageddon in two suspects' school lockers. "What the resounding theme is: They were actually going to do this," Norman said. Norman said he would ask prosecutors to bring charges of conspiracy to commit murder against the teens, ages 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. 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. Officials at Riverton High School began investigating on Tuesday after learning that a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com, he said. 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 wearing trench coats killed 13 people and committed suicide, the sheriff said. "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. 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 received more specific information that there would be about a dozen potential victims, at least one of whom was a staff member. She notified authorities in her state, who contacted the sheriff's department, Norman said. Norman said that the potential victims were popular students and that the suspects may have been bullied. "I think there was probably some bullying, name calling, chastising," he said. He also said investigators had learned the suspects were computer buffs who liked violent video games. About 900 students in all grades go to school on the campus. Riverton is an unincorporated area of about 600 people along what once was the famed Route 66 in southeast Kansas, near the Oklahoma and Missouri borders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fight_on_til_you_have_won Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Damn, that's disheartening as hell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander PK Posted April 21, 2006 Author Share Posted April 21, 2006 Whatever happened to... if you are picked on by somebody, you put up with it, until you've had enough. Challenge the guy to a fist fight after school. Either you beat the hell out of him, he beats the hell out of you, or it's a draw. Usually the person doing the bullying respects you after that because you are willing to stand up for yourself. We all have been picked on or teased by somebody in our lives at some point. Why does this generation seem to have so many kids who can't handle the teasing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mass_SkinsFan Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Ok. Great. They stopped the potential attack. That's absolutely spectacular. Now tell me what the authorities are going to do to these five young men and their PARENTS. What sort of SEVERE PUNISHMENT is going to rain down upon these young men and their PARENTS. Does Kansas have the Death Penalty? If so, I think they should all get it. That is the young men AND the PARENTS. Is anyone seeing a theme here? I believe that when any of these sort of things happen, there is a serious breakdown at the most basic level of discipline and education..... THE PARENTS. All this stuff was found in the room of one of the young men? I couldn't have kept a friggin Playboy magazine hidden in my room for more than about a week and when my father found it I wouldn't have been able to sit for a month. If I was lucky. Never mind firearms, ammunition, plans for an assault on my school, etc.... Where and when this idea that a child has ANY expectation of privacy in their parents home is something I'd love to know. I know it definitely didn't exist when I was a kid. These young men are 16-18 years old. That's more than old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. They planned and prepared for a military-type assault on their school. They procured weapons and ammunition illegally and with malice. So far as I'm concerned anything less than "Life in Prison without possibility of Parole" or (preferably) "Execution" is too light a sentence in my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumrunner6900 Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Whatever happened to...if you are picked on by somebody, you put up with it, until you've had enough. Challenge the guy to a fist fight after school. Either you beat the hell out of him, he beats the hell out of you, or it's a draw. Usually the person doing the bullying respects you after that because you are willing to stand up for yourself. We all have been picked on or teased by somebody in our lives at some point. Why does this generation seem to have so many kids who can't handle the teasing? I'll answer this one.... kids are major ******* nowadays!! Seriously...I can't believe the way kids are. I'm not exactly old, but even 10 years ago when I was in high school it was like you said. You got your ass beat, or you beat some ass, and things were settled. (Of course there were less kids being medicated by the time they were 10 in those years...coincidence??) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander PK Posted April 21, 2006 Author Share Posted April 21, 2006 Honestly, I think it's when parents stopped trying to be parents, and starting being "friends." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumrunner6900 Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Honestly, I think it's when parents stopped trying to be parents, and starting being "friends." :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: One of the symptoms right there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Honestly, I think it's when parents stopped trying to be parents, and starting being "friends." Hell, even killing your worst tormentor makes some type of sense but that indiscriminate "oh kill all the popular/beautiful people" is what makes no sense to me. They don't spare anyone, they just kill. Let me also add that we recently had a mass murder here in Seattle. The guy was invited to an after-rave party and gunned down people of all ages (including young 14 yr old girl.) This guy was NOT teased by anyone, he was probably just homicidal and twisted. Just like Columbine. They found that was it Harris(?) fit the profile of a psychopath and his buddy was drawn in by his strength of personality. NONE of this is about teasing!! It's not about bullying. TARGETS may be selected based on some of that stuff but the act is not due to bullying. It's due to a combination of factors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mass_SkinsFan Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Whatever happened to...if you are picked on by somebody, you put up with it, until you've had enough. Challenge the guy to a fist fight after school. Either you beat the hell out of him, he beats the hell out of you, or it's a draw. Usually the person doing the bullying respects you after that because you are willing to stand up for yourself. We all have been picked on or teased by somebody in our lives at some point. Why does this generation seem to have so many kids who can't handle the teasing? You want to know why, Painkiller? I can explain it very easily... It's a three-sided issue. The first side is the fact that we no longer accept differences in society. "That's absurd" you say. "We accept everyone" you say. "Exactly" I say. We try to make everyone the same instead of valuing the differences between the races, genders, religions, etc... Everyone has to be able to do the same things to the same level or it's "Unfair". So anyone who goes out of their way to be different becomes a target for ridicule by everyone. Not just by the bullies. Secondly, what's one of the biggest things you hear from parents these days... "We don't hit." Physical violence is no longer an acceptable way of dealing with issues in our society. Not to spank a disobedient child. Not to solve a problem between siblings. Not in ANY form. And lastly... the way we DO deal with potential problems just exacerbates the prior two issues. ie.... In high school I had an issue with a fellow student. He decided the best way to get back at me was to deface some of my work that was stored in the classroom we both shared for drafting classes (different periods). This individual proceeded to scrawl the words "purple face" all over a number of my drawings before I could turn them in for credit. The response from the administration "Do you want us to talk to him or have someone come in and talk to the class about birthmarks?" I declined the invitation, after informing the administrator that things of that order were not going to remedy the issue. Instead, I caught up with the guy after school, jacked him up against the brick wall and told him that if he ever defaced my work again I was going to rearrange HIS face for him. Problem solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enter Apotheosis Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 I'll answer this one....kids are major ******* nowadays!! Seriously...I can't believe the way kids are. I'm not exactly old, but even 10 years ago when I was in high school it was like you said. You got your ass beat, or you beat some ass, and things were settled. (Of course there were less kids being medicated by the time they were 10 in those years...coincidence??) I'm still not convinced that kids themselves have changed all that much in the past decade or two... a lot of it has more to do with changes within the school systems and parenting. The reason you have kids going so far as to want to kill each other is possibly related to the fact that schools are making it increasingly difficult to resolve fights and bullying like the way you described. Basically, anyone who is even remotely involved in a fight is punished even if they were just defending themselves or trying to help someone out and there is a significantly less tolerance towards any physical contact (I blame the idiot parents who sue school systems for problems caused by other peoples' children). At the same time, schools don't and really can't monitor or prevent MOST bullying (it just happens) so that goes completely unchecked. Essentially... the ones being picked on are rendered defenseless and just have to sit and endure all the taunting until it builds up to extremely unhealthy points. Really, thats just kind of my shot-in-the-dark theory... I was never really especially picked on in high school, so I can't really say for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterPinstripe Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Honestly, I think it's when parents stopped trying to be parents, and starting being "friends." Couldnt agree more. They have plenty of people to be friends with. Only two people that can be parents. And they need that a heck of a lot more then friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander PK Posted April 21, 2006 Author Share Posted April 21, 2006 Really, thats just kind of my shot-in-the-dark theory... I was never really especially picked on in high school, so I can't really say for sure. Point taken. However, I would rather have a three day suspension for standing up for myself, then putting up with 4 years of torture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enter Apotheosis Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 Point taken. However, I would rather have a three day suspension for standing up for myself, then putting up with 4 years of torture. True. Mass_Skins also has a point (which I'll admit, he usually does even though his methodology sucks)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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