<p>R.I. School Essay Brings in Secret Service
Feb 02 2:34 PM US/Eastern
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<p>WEST WARWICK, R.I.</p>
<p>The Secret Service is investigating a seventh-grader who wrote a school essay that authorities say advocated violence against President Bush, talk show host Oprah Winfrey and others. </p>
<p>The boy’s homework assignment for English class was to write what he would do on a perfect day. In addition to the president and Winfrey, the boy wrote that violence should be directed at executives of Coca- Cola and Wal-Mart, police and school officials said. </p>
<p>“His perfect day would be to see the destruction of these people,” Schools Superintendent David Raiche said. </p>
<p>The Secret Service investigation is ongoing, but the essay may have been a “cry for help,” said Thomas M. Powers, resident agent in charge in Providence. Threatening the president is a felony, he said. </p>
<p>Authorities would not identify the boy or his teacher or release a copy of the essay. He was not arrested, police Detective Sgt. Fernando Araujo said. </p>
<p>“It wasn’t any detailed, minute-by-minute plan,” Araujo said. “It didn’t meet the criteria for a criminal charge.” </p>
<p>The boy has been temporarily barred from school, but as a mental health rather than disciplinary precaution, Raiche said.</p>
<p>After Columbine, and the other school shootings, I don’t think anything like this should be dismissed lightly, although getting the Secret Service involved seems a little over the top. I do hope this child is getting appropriate help.</p>
<p>Since we have had a nice number of shootings, school officials can no longer ignore messages that contain threats of violence. </p>
<p>The immediate reaction after a tragedy involving youth violence is to question why early signs were ignored.</p>
<p>This has nothing to do with freedom a speech; it’s a story of a very troubled young person. Most children do not wake up with thoughts of shooting adults.</p>
<p>I’m a student but I sometimes hang out in the parents cafe, because you guys are cool ;)</p>
<p>Yeah, the secret service gets pretty uptight about things like that…I remember one of my mom’s friends mother wrote a threatning email to the president. The secret service agents showed up at her door in less than a day!</p>
<p>In 2002, the U.S. Secret Service completed the Safe School Initiative, a study of school shootings and other school-based attacks that was conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education. The study examined school shootings in the United States as far back as 1974, through the end of the school year in 2000, analyzing a total of 37 incidents involving 41 student attackers. The study involved extensive review of police records, school records, court documents, and other source materials, and included interviews with 10 school shooters. The focus of the study was on developing information about the school shooters’s pre-attack behaviors and communications. The goal was to identify information about a school shooting that may be identifiable or noticeable before the shooting occurs, to help inform efforts to prevent school-based attacks.</p>
<p>I’ve worked in the public schools for 20 years and I know that we react differently to kids’ writings and angry/threatening comments now than we did 15-20 years ago.</p>
<p>Xiggi makes an important point: when school violence happens we all look back to see what signs we missed. Also, the blaming and liability are huge for missing the signs. Sometimes it seems like we overreact but that is because we fearing underreacting more. It’s a tough place to be.</p>
<p>The schools I have been in have sought help from the city/town police, county sheriff’s office, and state police when investigating written and verbal threats. The threats were directed at teachers, other school staff, and students. I’ve never had any involvement with the secret service, FBI, or Homeland Security. I would imagine that the threat against the President precipitated the involvement of the Secret Service. </p>
<p>Also, please remember that once the threat is turned over to law enforcement to investigate it’s out of our hands as a school as to whom else(e.g., Secret Service) comes on board. So, assuming that the school got the Secret Service involved may not be accurate and they may be as baffled and mortified by their involvement as many of us.</p>
<p>I think it was certainly wise for someone (police, etc.) to check that this kid didn’t have any weapons and to get him some mental help- but a 12 year old really doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually getting to the president.</p>
<p>This is nothing new. In 1981, a columnist for The Daily Pennsylvanian (Penn’s student run paper) wrote this after John Hinckley’s attempted assasination of Ronald Reagan: “Too bad he missed”. The secret service were in the DP office immediately and I never saw another column by that individual.</p>
<p>Unfortunately following Columbine and similar incidents, teachers have been told to take all threats seriously because you never know who is being serious. I would have assumed the kid was joking, but what if some one had assumed the Columbine kids were joking.</p>
<p>Teachers are held to reporting such incidents. It’s like child abuse. We can be held accountable if we witnessed any evidence or heard evidence and don’t report it…no matter how small. A high school principal in my area was arrested a year or so ago for this. We get staff development every year about these issues. It may seem like censorship or overprotectiveness, but what if it’s not? Would you want your child in the school the day we found out the kid wasn’t joking?</p>
<p>If he wasn’t joiking, the local police THEN should have called in the FEDS. But it was a waste of FED dollars. The police to call in the Secret Service because of an essay without checking it out first is ridiculous.</p>
<p>We have cargo containers coming into this country, millions and millions, that are not searched. It is very easy to buy guns. </p>
<p>Yet, we spend resources flying in Secret Service agents to check on a 12 year old kids essay. Have the school and the LOCAL police check him out if necessary, but to include the Feds in the INITIAL investigation is excessive, who ever called them</p>
<p>It like, wow, a threat, but never mind about the ports; and they are connected. Its a mentality of not worrying about real issues on the Federal level.</p>
<p>If this kid was a threat, the locals could have handled it. </p>
<p>We hear about credible security threats all the time, and if this is what they are talking about, me thinks they need to think about what is credible</p>
<p>Well, title of thread is good advice. Tell your kids not to write about killing of any kind for any school assignments, and do not use the word “hate,” also do not make any lists of names of any kind, and do not draw the floorplan of the school. Did I miss anything?</p>
We don’t have a lot of info on the situation but as a pretty much flaming liberal I don’t agree with this. The FBI/secret service are the experts on threats against the president … IMO the last thing we want are local officials doing the triage on these issues … and then when something goes bad we’ll hear how the experts never heard about it because the local folks withheld information because they didn’t think it was relevant. Any threat to the president should go directly to the Feds IMO.</p>
<p>hey, Secret service does a lot of investigations that we wouldn’t think they’d need to be concerned with…like credit card theft. My cousin worked for S.S. and once when my card had beens stolen, she mentioned that the local offices will investigate this(along with the local police where the crime occurred.) if they are called upon.</p>
<p>Do you KNOW what the main mission of the Secret Service is? It is their duty to investigate ANY threats against the president. That is what they do and they are experienced to handle such cases. What is the experience of the local police in those case? There is a reason why cases are immediately escalated. </p>
<p>While your subjectivity is truly amazing, you are reaching new lows when it comes to plain ignorance.</p>