Legal restrictions stymie efforts to curb school violence

Ohio agencies can’t share information about a troubled child.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AUSTINTOWN — Who is more likely to begin a shooting spree at your school? Studies point to a kid, usually white and usually male, from the suburbs.

He may have a history of mental health problems, run-ins with the police and fights in school.

For years, he may be a regular in the therapist’s and principal’s offices and the juvenile court system without those agencies knowing about one another’s involvement in his life.

If such a kid decides he can’t take it anymore and starts shooting in an Austintown school one day, school staff and the police will act fast.

Staff will put as much space and as many locked doors as possible between him and his classmates, said Superintendent Doug Heuer.

Police will track him from laptops in their cruisers that will let them access the school’s security system to see where he is in the building, said Police Chief Bob Gavalier.

They won’t wait for a Special Weapons and Tactics team. They can’t.

The days of “securing the perimeter” and waiting for a special team to begin negotiations are over, Gavalier said.

“Now it’s respond to the call and go after the shooter,” he said.

There’s no negotiating because there’s no turning back for the boy by then. Most chilling of all, the boy expects, maybe even plans to die anyway.

“What they’ve found — people who reach this stage don’t care if they die or not,” Heuer said.

Not allowed to share

But what if the troubled kid was headed off the deep end before he took a gun to school?

What if the police, the court system, mental health agencies and Children Services were allowed to share information about him to paint a clearer picture of all his problems before they erupted with gunfire?

Legal restrictions in Ohio prohibit the sharing of such information between agencies, Heuer said. He and Gavalier believe that should change.

“Police can’t call us and ask for a history on a kid they have,” Heuer said.

“Federal statistics show most information comes toward the end, not the beginning,” Gavalier added. “School may see him once or twice, police may see him three or four times. Children Services may be involved. Mental Health may see him a few times. If agencies were talking, they’d see it.”

Children Services, said Heuer, is “very restricted.”