Experts discuss violence in schools

SANDY — In the mid- to late '90s, these names became synonymous for tragedy: Columbine, West Paducah, Moses Lake and Springfield, Ore.

They were all the scenes of mass school shootings. But since the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007 where a lone gunman killed 32 people before killing himself, there haven't been many school shootings that received the same media attention as Columbine.

At the 19th annual Utah Gang Conference Friday at the South Towne Expo Center, however, DeLano Gilkey, director of the National Youth Violence Consultants out of Phoenix, pointed out there have been at least 10 school shootings worldwide since Virginia Tech. The most recent was March 11 of this year when 15 people at a school in Winnenden, Germany, were shot and killed by a 17-year-old classmate.

School violence, bullying and gangs in schools were discussed during several workshops Friday. One of the goals of this year's gang conference was crossover — to get educators to see what cops do and for cops to see what educators do, and how both can work together to help keep a handle on the gang problem, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Steve Anjewierden, head of the Metro Gang Unit.

"I think it's huge," he said of the importance of having educators well-represented at the conference.

Talking before a packed conference room, DeLano pointed out that the death toll for school shootings was actually greater from 1992 to 1993 than it was from 1998 to 1999, the year of the Columbine tragedy. The difference in media attention, however, was that the majority of school homicides in the early '90s were all gang-related and the victims were specifically targeted. Worldwide attention didn't start coming until late in the '90s when the victims became random.

"(The shooters') mentality is different. They are against everybody and anybody not like them," he said. Today, DeLano is worried that media attention has diminished again. News organizations don't give school shootings major attention unless there are multiple victims, he said. That deprives the public of knowing what's happening.

"It's happening every school year. We're having kids die in the schools," he said.

DeLano's workshop was highlighted by powerful images of past school shootings and a disturbing black-and-white video that appeared to be taken from school surveillance cameras capturing an actual mass shooting spree. The video, which was very similar to the real images from Columbine, showed two men going through a school and randomly shooting students in a carefree manner.