It seemed like a normal day at JFK Elementary School this morning when I dropped my kids off for school. The only sign that today was different than any other was the larger-than-usual contingent of staff and administrators waiting to greet us as we approached. They welcomed both my kids by name — my daughter gave principal Mary O’Rourke a hug.
Looking at the scene, you’d never guess that hours before, the school was surrounded by police cars and officers with guns drawn.
About an hour after school let out yesterday afternoon, a home invasion was reported near the Winooski Educational Center, a complex that houses JFK, along with the Winooski Middle-High School. According to school officials, the Winooski Police believed two suspects fled in the direction of the school, prompting a lockdown for the students and staff remaining in the building. During the lockdown, someone inside the school called 911 to report that a gunman was inside.
Multiple law enforcement agencies responded and thoroughly searched the school. News of a possible gunman exploded on social media. Reporters and community members posted numerous updates and photos from the scene. Parents whose kids were in the after-school program raced to the scene, terrified about what they might find.
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…”These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry …”
Paul Simon, The Boy in the Bubble
“Elementary school staffer Emily Hines told WCAX-TV that she had barricaded herself and her students in a steel closet…..” What brilliance! Emily should get a raise! She is showing her students by example what has become the accepted U.S. public policy: If there is the slightest hint of something out of the ordinary, find a panic button and push it hard. Don’t think, react; and, of course, the more fear you show by your actions, the better. A false alarm can no longer be dismissed with a “Well, someone goofed”.
This was a phenomenal overreaction that should have been laughed off. Instead, people congratulated each other for how seriously they responded–or, in effect, were duped. The icing on the fear cake was the horde of counselors that descended on the school, completely blowing the non-event out of proportion. The school couldn’t possibly let the students enjoy how silly the adults acted. Oh no, they must be counseled!
Here in the United States of Lockdown a good student is a fearful student.
Tim, We are letting security–and those who benefit from it–dominate our society. Right now I am struggling to get my painters through a security vetting process at a manufacturing plant. Two have been rejected so far. Why? Their proof of citizenship was inadequate. These guys were born in Vermont and have lived here their whole lives, but because someone in a cubicle somewhere in the U.S. came up with greater security restrictions, they can’t get in the plant to work.
We were once painting a shopping center when a woman smelled the material and felt faint. A store employee called 911 and in came the panic mongers. The shopping center was shut down, the woman was rushed to the hospital, and all the customers were checked by EMTs–with the exception of one group: my painters, the very group most exposed to the paint fumes. Upshot: the woman was fine, nothing was deemed wrong with the material we were using, and I had a first hand experience with what hysteria can do.
Fortunately while rushing this hysterical woman to the hospital the young guys at the wheel of the ambulance didn’t flatten some kid crossing the road. These ever-more-frequent security/panic events do have those kinds of consequences. Innocent people get hurt and even killed by over-zealous responders. Happens a lot, in fact.
Sorry, but I have no idea what you meant by your “Boy in the Bubble” reference. I wasn’t commenting on it, if that’s why you got hissy with me.
Eric Johnson
Your very personal attack on Emily Hines ( a person I am not acquainted with) was uncalled for. She did her best to protect her charges under terrifying cirumstances. It’s the kind of courage you expect to see in a war zone, not a public school.
These are the days of miracle and wonder, Paul Simon wrote sardonically in his song “The Boy in the Bubble” some thirty years ago. Horrors and atrocities once undreamt of have become all too common.
I should not have singled her out, you’re right.
Terrifying circumstances? There were no guys with guns, Tim. It was a false alarm.
I have no idea what new horrors and atrocities you are referring to that could possibly be worse than the fire bombings of Tokyo or Dresden (tens of thousands dead in one night) or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (more tens of thousands in a 24 hour period) or the battle of Verdun in WW 1 (close to a million casualties–one battle!) or of Stalingrad in WW 2 (hundreds of thousands dead). Six million Jews died in the Holocaust; Stalin killed even more of his own countrymen than that. So what, precisely, do you have in mind that is so much worse that we now have to face?
The lack of parking downtown, the Obamacare debacle, the possibility of Jeb Bush being President in 2016. You know, really bad stuff.
Spooky…well, at least Jeb’s due.
Bush– Clinton — Bush — Obama —
Do your painters not have birth certificates? Available at the town clerks office where they were born. A driver’s license?
I do agree, hysteria has gotten worse and worse and worse, but I can’t sympathize with someone who can’t prove residency. It’s not THAT difficult.
jc, We did get them in. Turns out one was born in California so getting his birth certificate was a bit of an ordeal. Both are now working in the plant.
In a nutshell, people seem to be clueless when it comes to evaluating real threats. They see bad things on the internet or TV and assume it’s like that everywhere, when it isn’t. About 300 people have been shot in U.S. schools in the last 30 years while distracted driving–largely cell phone use–kills 1,500 a year. If people were serious about reducing mayhem and unnecessary deaths in this country, they would relax about this school shooting nonsense and stop texting/talking while driving.