There has been a shooting in the Chardon High School cafeteria in Northeast Ohio around 7:50AM. According to reports, five shots were fired and four students were injured, and the LifeFlight helicopter has been dispatched to the school. The shooter was on the run for a short time but has been taken into custody. The school was on lockdown for about an hour, but classes have been cancelled and students are being returned to their homes. The story may change slightly as more facts become available.
Details are still sketchy at this point, but the best reports I've found are here:
Channel 19 news report
Channel 8 News report (It's Fox, but has more details than some others, and video.)
My thoughts go out to the students at Chardon. I live about a 20-30 minute drive from Chardon, so this was a shock for me. It's sad that school shootings have become so common, and this one was way too close to home. It's become common enough that it's almost not a "Top Story" anymore. But I think that one shooting is one too many.
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A few short thoughts about this scary post-Columbine world: I work at a college campus, and the realities of school in today's world were made clear me when we had a staff meeting a couple months ago on how to deal with an "active shooter", what to do, where to hide. Some of us are specially trained on how to tackle and subdue a shooter, training which is becoming increasingly necessary. On emergency procedure placards all over campus there are procedures listed for an "active shooter".
It's terrible that this is now a reality that we have to deal with. I don't know what causes this or why school shootings seem to be increasing in frequency. I wonder if anything is being done to prevent these incidents, to identify the warning signs and causes, to stop this before a troubled youth becomes an "active shooter".
Scary times we live in. I know there's quite a few teachers and some college students on Dkos, so stay safe, Kossacks. It's a scary, scary world we live in.