Wednesday, February 29, 2012
It happened again. And again the expressions of condolences are mixed with expressions of disbelief that one high school student could open fire on others, taking their lives.
This time, it’s relatively close to home, in Chardon in Geauga County, a community not unlike many other Northeastern Ohio suburban communities. Many Vindicator readers would have visited its town square for the annual maple syrup festival at the end of April.
Which makes the harsh reality even more difficult to grasp. Monday morning, Demetrius Hewlin, Russell King Jr. and Daniel Parmertor, left their families’ embrace to make a routine trip to their high school classes. Within hours, Parmertor was dead and Hewlin, King and two others were wounded. By Tuesday morning, Hewlin and King had died in the hospital.
As always, in the immediate aftermath of these shootings, bits and pieces of stories were put into circulation, much of it through social media. But the school administration forbade employees from speaking to the press, even about the apparently heroic efforts of an assistant football coach. And Tuesday the judge issued a gag order on attorneys in the case.
Time will tell
Little by little, a clearer portrait of what happened at Chardon High School will come together, from official and unofficial sources, but for now there are only snippets to be sifted through an rearranged.
T.J. Lane, a 17-year-old sophomore at an alternative school who was only at the high school to transfer to another bus, has been arrested. The 22-caliber pistol from which he is alleged to have fired 10 shots and a knife will be entered as evidence. The prosecutor said at Lane’s arraignment Tuesday that the shots were fired at random. Students had said Monday that Lane resented King, who had dated a former girlfriend of Lane. Contradictory descriptions of Lane were given by other students. He was a loner. He was quiet, but had a small circle of friends. He was a sweet kid. He had a smoldering temper. He had never been in trouble. He had a brush with juvenile court.
There’s really not much to be gleaned from such a grab bag of truths, half truths and probable falsehoods.
Court records report one aspect of Lane’s life with little variation. Some of his formative years were spent as a witness of, and likely victim of, domestic abuse. Both his father and a stepfather faced charges of domestic violence over the years.
An emerging pattern
It has almost become a pattern that some of these schoolhouse assailants are presented as sympathetic figures. But whether they have been beaten at home or bullied at school, focusing on that is a disservice to the true victims and a danger to society.
It’s the kind of thing that allows the next aggrieved student to begin rationalizing what he is planning to do.
And planning is the operative word, because these are almost never spur of the moment attacks, if for no other reason than that no one routinely carries a gun to school each day. At some point days or weeks in advance, the assailant begins hatching his plan.
And no matter how sympathetic a figure the gunman may become as tales of his troubled youth emerge, it must be remembered that he had multiple opportunities to stop himself long before he pulled the trigger.
It appears that T.J. Lane has thrown away the prospect of living a normal life. And that is sad. But not nearly as sad as the loss of three innocent lives.