Boy Shoots Himself At School

Nothingman54

By MARYCLAIRE DALE - Associated Press Writer

ERDENHEIM, Pa.(AP) An 11th-grader despondent that his parents might curtail his after-school activities because of poor grades took a rifle to school Tuesday and killed himself between classes in a hallway, authorities said.

The gunman, Shane Joseph Halligan, 16, had no intention of hurting anyone else in the 9 a.m. shooting at Springfield Township High School, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said.

Halligan was an Eagle Scout and a volunteer firefighter whose poor grades had led his parents on Monday to threaten to cut back on his after-school activities, Castor said.

"The picture that's emerging is he was despondent over (the fact) his grades are down, his parents are taking appropriate steps to limit extracurricular activities to get the grades up, and he saw the things that he felt were important in his life being taken from him," Castor said.

The boy pledged to get his grades back up.

On Tuesday morning, he ate breakfast with his family. At some point, he retrieved the rifle from a locked cabinet and found high-powered ammunition in the basement, Castor said.

The boy fired shots into the ceiling in the science-wing hallway after first period, said Michael Delaurentis, who was about 30 feet away.

"I was walking to my class," said Delaurentis, who turned 18 on Tuesday. "I just hear 'Get down.' I heard shots fired into the ceiling and I saw smoke."

A security camera showed the boy taking the gun out of bag and shooting into the ceiling, said Randall D. Hummel, the township police chief. Students in the hallway scrambled for cover, and the teenager walked to another hallway out of view, then shot himself, Hummel said.


King Jeremy!

Ahnimus

Stupid parents.

justam

If his family didn't have a rifle and ammunitian for it, he might still be alive. I don't think people need to own guns.

sapperskunk

Well good thing nobody else was hurt, with all the hostage situations and murders at schools this year, I'm suprised it wasn't worse.

Fuck his parents, I mean unlike other kids around the nation he was actually staying active after school.

When I was his age, I would hang out at the local circle K drinking deck stain and look how I turned out.

atleast he didn't kill himself over a video game?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/17/48hours/main525965.shtml

jlew24asu

justam wrote:

If his family didn't have a rifle and ammunitian for it, he might still be alive. I don't think people need to own guns.

where were you for the guns thread. big debate about this.

http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=225210

Ahnimus

sapperskunk wrote:

Well good thing nobody else was hurt, with all the hostage situations and murders at schools this year, I'm suprised it wasn't worse.

Fuck his parents, I mean unlike other kids around the nation he was actually staying active after school.

When I was his age, I would hang out at the local circle K drinking deck stain and look how I turned out.

atleast he didn't kill himself over a video game?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/17/48hours/main525965.shtml

Exactly, it's the dumbest thing parents do most often. Punish a kid's poor grades by revoking thier ability to be active. It's dumb. They should be encouraging activities after school regardless of grades and encouraging good grades, not flipping out because poor grades. Parents really need to find out why the grades are poor, it's almost never because of after-school activity.

thatirwinfella

there were probably high and unreasonable expectations for the boy, which meant he was unable to actually achieve "good grades"

that aside, i don't think the parents were over reacting, it was probably a good move by them. if the kid was out doing all those things [and there probably things most parents would love for their kids to do anyway, not drinking or doing drugs] he probably didn't get much time to study.

but keeping guns where kids can get them... not on.

If it was high expectations by the parents, poor kid. He sounds like he was doing pretty good. If he was desperate enough to kill himself there must be more to the story.

bootlegger10

Ahnimus wrote:

Exactly, it's the dumbest thing parents do most often. Punish a kid's poor grades by revoking thier ability to be active. It's dumb. They should be encouraging activities after school regardless of grades and encouraging good grades, not flipping out because poor grades. Parents really need to find out why the grades are poor, it's almost never because of after-school activity.

It is no different than a student-athlete getting suspended from the team for poor grades. Grades come first. I agree with the parents. You gotta bring some discipline to the kid's life, and if the kid can't handle his after school activities and his grades, then you gotta bring the hammer down. You've still got the weekends. It is about trust and responsibility. You get more trust and responsibility as you build it. This kid obviously had something else wrong with him, because a normal kid doesn't shoot himself over losing out on after school activities.

Ahnimus

bootlegger10 wrote:

It is no different than a student-athlete getting suspended from the team for poor grades. Grades come first. I agree with the parents. You gotta bring some discipline to the kid's life, and if the kid can't handle his after school activities and his grades, then you gotta bring the hammer down. You've still got the weekends. It is about trust and responsibility. You get more trust and responsibility as you build it. This kid obviously had something else wrong with him, because a normal kid doesn't shoot himself over losing out on after school activities.

I totally disagree with you after having studied child psychology.

Chances are there something happening at school that was affecting his grades, not something happening after school. It could have been a conflict with a teacher or students. Thus why he shot himself at school and not at home.

sapperskunk

OOOOOhhhhhhh, that's interesting. I guess I've never thought about that.

Does that theory apply to all other scenarios of school violence?

Ahnimus

sapperskunk wrote:

OOOOOhhhhhhh, that's interesting. I guess I've never thought about that.

Does that theory apply to all other scenarios of school violence?

No, sometimes kids who have problems at home bring them to school. Usually as bullies, just taking their aggression out on others at school.

But in many cases when a youth has troubles both at school and can't get support from their parents, rather their parents take away what is important to their kids to force them to get better grades. It doesn't force them to do anything, it just irritates the hell out of them. They feel trapped.

I've been there myself, I had teachers that singled me out in classes and I was very rarely allowed to even attend my classes. This resulted in poor grades and my parents punishing me by grounding me after school. I was very close to doing what this kid did.

sapperskunk

Ahnimus wrote:

No, sometimes kids who have problems at home bring them to school. Usually as bullies, just taking their aggression out on others at school.

But in many cases when a youth has troubles both at school and can't get support from their parents, rather their parents take away what is important to their kids to force them to get better grades. It doesn't force them to do anything, it just irritates the hell out of them. They feel trapped.

I've been there myself, I had teachers that singled me out in classes and I was very rarely allowed to even attend my classes. This resulted in poor grades and my parents punishing me by grounding me after school. I was very close to doing what this kid did.

GEEZ, what stopped you?

Ahnimus

sapperskunk wrote:

GEEZ, what stopped you?

I was kicked out of school completely. So I was able to forget about trying to achieve at that point. However, it wasn't the last time I tried suicide.

Ahnimus

I say, if you want to punish your kid, take away his right to play video games or something. Never take away his/her right to play sports.

Think of it like this, you can suppress or reinforce your child's activities. Banning them from playing sports suppresses the activity. Reinforce the activity of playing sports always. Or they end up like me. lol.

Abuskedti

bootlegger10 wrote:

It is no different than a student-athlete getting suspended from the team for poor grades. Grades come first. I agree with the parents. You gotta bring some discipline to the kid's life, and if the kid can't handle his after school activities and his grades, then you gotta bring the hammer down. You've still got the weekends. It is about trust and responsibility. You get more trust and responsibility as you build it. This kid obviously had something else wrong with him, because a normal kid doesn't shoot himself over losing out on after school activities.

I got some kids of my own.. I had to learn as I go.. But I loved them and therefore was very quick to learn not to punish them by taking away something that is good for them.

of course we don't know the whole story.. sometimes kids have too many extra activities. There are so many factors - it is unfair to read this short story and presume to blame someone.

catefrances

it saddens me that this boy thought his only way out was to kill himself. and for what? when are parents gonna realise that there is more to life than good school grades. and i have to wonder when our school systems are going to acknowledge that not all kids learn at the same speed and that there is no such thing as the average student. colouring inside the lines is not the only way.
as a parent it gives me pride when my kids bring home good grades. if their teachers tell me they 'could do better' then i don't really sweat it because i know it will come with time. and perhaps the school's rigidity and curriculum bore my children. but i also know that once they leave school, that's when the real learning begins. as long as they are doing what they want or what they feel they need to and not hurting anybody else and not getting arrested, then i'm fine.
i would rather have my kids know they can come to me with anything rather than have them think me unapproachable and judgemental.

enharmonic

Kids today have it easy. When I was in high school, I feared the day I brought home anything less than a C. No car, no chilling with the little lady, no movies on the weekend. Heck, if it wasn't for my dad threatening no sports, I might have flunked out of high school.

I feel bad for the kid, but if he threw himself in frnt of a speeding bus, would we have a debate about busses too? Would people be calling for busses to be outlawed?

If you can't own a gun responsibly, that is your problem. Those of us who don't have big rocks in our head can own them without much risk.

My suicide note? "Look mom & dad, I got an A in marksmanship...you fuckers"

I mean, if you're going to do it...might as well leave as much guilt onthe table as possible.

catefrances

enharmonic wrote:

Kids today have it easy. When I was in high school, I feared the day I brought home anything less than a C. No car, no chilling with the little lady, no movies on the weekend. Heck, if it wasn't for my dad threatening no sports, I might have flunked out of high school.

I feel bad for the kid, but if he threw himself in frnt of a speeding bus, would we have a debate about busses too? Would people be calling for busses to be outlawed?

If you can't own a gun responsibly, that is your problem. Those of us who don't have big rocks in our head can own them without much risk.

My suicide note? "Look mom & dad, I got an A in marksmanship...you fuckers"

I mean, if you're going to do it...might as well leave as much guilt onthe table as possible.

in what respect do kids have it easy these days?
from what i see they have to strive to be 'the best' at everything they do. they have to achieve high in order to get the grades to get into university to get the good job to earn the good money to be deemed a success in our society.
i would rather my children were happy with what they were doing not busting their hump to please me. or anyone else for that matter. i will be pleased with what they have achieved and what they are doing if it is what they want to do.

searchlightsoul

enharmonic wrote:

I feel bad for the kid, but if he threw himself in frnt of a speeding bus, would we have a debate about busses too? Would people be calling for busses to be outlawed?

You do have rocks in your head if you feel the need to own a rifle for 'self protection'

enharmonic wrote:

If you can't own a gun responsibly, that is your problem.

The record in American schools suggests otherwise

brain of c

hey man, nice shot.

justam

enharmonic wrote:

I feel bad for the kid, but if he threw himself in frnt of a speeding bus, would we have a debate about busses too? Would people be calling for busses to be outlawed?

If you can't own a gun responsibly, that is your problem. Those of us who don't have big rocks in our head can own them without much risk.

In my opinion, the parents didn't own the gun responsibly. They had a gun in the house that their child could take out and kill himself with. Where's the responsibility in that?

Guns make it far too easy for people to die. If the boy had to stab himself with a kitchen knife, I don't think he'd have the nerve to kill himself, but the ease of a gun made it a simple movement of his finger and it was OVER.