'The Park County, Colorado, coroner has confirmed that a body found in a wooded area Wednesday evening is 17-year-old Austin Lyle, who allegedly shot and wounded two staff members earlier that day at a Denver high school – a community already reeling from a fatal incident of gun violence last month."

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Unfortunately, he didn't just shoot himself first and save a lot of suffering for two innocent families.

I hope they make a speedy recovery. Teachers and school staff aren't paid enough for the bullshit they are forced to deal with.

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What is it that drives the youths of today to feel this is a viable outlet? I don't remember this being a thing when I was in school in the late 80's and early 90's.

What can we realistically do about it that doesn't involve blast doors and bullet proof windows that people seem to be fans of these days.

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Easy access to guns. Youths in other countries feel the same depression and pain and rage and play the same violent games and watch the same violent tv and movies and use the same social media that sometimes promotes violence, but the access to guns is what keeps school shootings down.

> guns were harder to get in the 80s

What are you smoking? There's a great case to be made that specific kinds of tacticool firearms are marketed more aggressively and occupy a bigger chunk of the market share these days, but in terms of pure ease of access the 80s and 90s were definitely less restrictive times for buying (much less possessing) guns in general and handguns in specific.

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> There is simply vastly more guns in America now then in the 80s.

Are you...are you suggesting that if someone wanted one in the 80s, there just weren't enough for sale? Because that's just screaming I wasn't alive in the 80s! The US population has also increased roughly 50% since 1980, and of course we're concerned about access, which is a per capita thing.

>Plus in the 94, we had a ban on assault weapons, which expired in 2004

Heh, you're not real clear on what that thing did, I see. I used to own a few 12 round mags with the RESTRICTED LEO/GOVT USE ONLY 10-94 branding...they came with a legally purchased pistol I received from a FFL around 2002. All the 94 "ban" did was change what the stocks on the new ARs in the shop looked like, and how expensive the old ARs and standard cap mags were...that's it.

>shooting with assault weapons have grown exponentially since

Yes, numbers are what they are. But you're mistaking correlation with causation here. Moreover, 10 drops in a bucket is an exponential increase from 1 drop in a bucket...but we're still talking drops in a bucket. The staggeringly vast majority of US gun homicides were and are handguns.

The kid was on some kind of disciplinary plan that required him to be frisked every morning at school. He had likely threatened this exact action towards staff/students.

So everyone, including this kid's parents, knew he was a risk. Was he still able to get one of his parent's guns or did he score it on the street?

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Doesn't matter, because doing nothing about it will lead to this again and again

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Gun control. But we’re the only country where that won’t work for some reason. /s

Why was he still allowed in school if he required that kind of "safety plan"?

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> The kid was on some kind of disciplinary plan that required him to be frisked every morning at school. He had likely threatened this exact action towards staff/students.

I'm curious why these kinds of students cannot simply expelled? Once you need to frisk someone, that seems to be adequate grounds for them to simply be removed for safety reasons.

People constantly talking about school shootings is probably a factor.

Not sure about everyone else (or maybe my home life and environment were really that shitty) but when I was a teenager I knew exactly where to go to buy a gun on the street and roughly how much it would cost. It wasn’t exactly a secret that a certain neighborhood was rough and you could purchase guns, drugs, booze etc from the people hanging outside a particular convenience store.

Oh cool, I guess there’s nothing to be done here. Close up shop boys, this guy says it’s just the news cycle killing kids.

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Because you can't just expell a kid and be done with them. The school system still needs to educate them. It's cheaper to frisk them than pay some outside specialized program to take them.

No Child Left Behind Every Child Succeeds Act. A child can’t be expelled without finding an alternative.

Maybe you mean shootings in general, but school shootings seem to be on the rise. Wikipedia lists about 8 school shootings per year in the 2000s, about 25 per year in the 2010s' and about 36 per year in the 2020s so far. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2000%E2%80%93present) ) I guess reporting standards could have changed or something.

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Doing nothing is the plan. Has been since Columbine.

you also got expelled from school in the 80s instead of just patted down on the way to class if you threatened to shoot people

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I'm a coward for wanting to protect myself from people who call for my Eradication?

Harder to get? Back then schools still had gun/hunting clubs. It was normal to bring your hunting rifle after school. At least those in the Midwest.

This entire story is just sad. This kid needed proper help. Instead we have violence and tragedy.

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The medias favorite topic

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That's not quite the full truth, they can be expelled BUT the school loses funding for that student and is required to pay for an alternative, so this school like all do the calculus and 99% of them choose to keep funding rather than send the student out of district and potentially be on the hook to pay more than the student generates in district. Basically profits over people at work yet again.

Kids probably are no different but the US has a huge proliferation of guns now and schools are not allowed to expel students without finding alternative means of educating them.

Sadly so much "help" for kids needs to start at birth. Seventeen can be too late. Sure some troubled kids can become working members of society but some never will. Ugh.

Former teacher here.

If you are a student who is forced every day to go somewhere you aren't successful, have no friends, teachers expect you to fail, and you are frisked and treated like a criminal every day, you are going to despair and feel hopeless. This will turn into resentment and anger. Now add easy access to guns and the question isn't "why does this keep happening?" it's "why isn't this happening even more?"

For 30% of students, high school is pretty fun. You may have lots of friends, excel at sports, and maybe even date. Teachers like you, your parents share your successes with other people. You are college bound.

For another 30%, school is tolerable. You have passable grades, go to events once in a while, have friends you hang out with, and may or may not have plans to go to college one day. It's not your favorite place to be, but it's not forever, and you have the idea that things will be better after high school.

Another 30% hate school. They find it mind-numbingly boring, can't wait to be done, and wouldn't go to a dance or sporting event if you paid them. They have one or two people who are friends and are closer to them than most family members. They smoke weed to be able to get through the day and play video games to escape and have something to look forward to.

School is painful for the last 10%. They only go if forced. They are isolated and alone. They are bullied daily, if not hourly. They might survive it until they can drop out. Or they might resort to killing the people that they feel are responsible and then themselves.

For some kids, school is already prison. It is a hopeless place they endure, if they can. Until school changes, this will keep happening. Easy access to guns just adds gas to an already burning fire.

crazy how people constantly talk about this thing that constantly happens

Where do the expelled kids go?

It was totally a thing in the 80s and 90s, it just wasn't so extreme. It ramped up after Columbine in 99 though.

Because funding is tied to the student, they can be expelled BUT the school loses funding for that student and is required to pay for an alternative, so this school like all do the calculus and 99% of them choose to keep funding rather than send the student out of district and potentially be on the hook to pay more than the student generates in district. Basically profits over people at work yet again.

I don't know. I wasn't saying they should expel kids, just pointing out that's what they did in that time.

Chaos and tragedy fuel our media. And anything that is a "feel good" story is typically about a celebrity's new clothing line or politician's book.

Happy ending for who? Seriously. What about this is happy in any aspect at all?

But I could talk about school shootings every day and not have the desire to commit one.

As someone who has lived in Denver since conception, East is a MASSIVE high school. Probably one of the biggest in Colorado. Keeping 1 student that might bring in 1/5000 the budget at the expense of every else’s safety is pretty dumb. Not only that, but East is also pretty wealthy in comparison to other public Colorado schools. No excuses here not to expel him. It’s more about how Denver sacrifices the future of everyone for a select few disasters.

A graph to prove your point.
https://www.chds.us/sssc/charts-graphs/

From Denver too and they may only bring in 1/5000 but the alternative could cost 4/5000, so a net loss, this is not specific to Denver but to all education in all states. With this in mind you'll understand how this totally 'unexplained' tragedy keeps playing out time and time again with a new shooter in another state.

I just explained how this entire thing could have been prevented. Stop trying to save every single kid. I’m sorry but some kids just have it made to end up in a cell or a ditch. That’s the reality. Expel students who are deemed a legitimate threat, and stop searching them every day. That only agitates the situation.

Student safety does not matter, only cost; the motto in this country is 'money over people'. That's why HS graduation rates are at all time highs while reading scores of those graduating are at all time lows. The courts have ruled teachers are not entitled to safety and the police are not there to protect the people.

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Yeah sadly… The entire public education system is on a whole other level of screwed. Maybe appropriately adjusting student costs to be equal with budget increases per student would fix this. Right now, the cost to keep a student enrolled is lower than the budget increase you get from 1 student. That means it’s ALWAYS a net positive to keep them in school, or what was simplified in the past as, no child left behind. Another policy paved with good intentions that have led to hell.

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That makes sense, thank you.

I went to an elementary school that had grades 1-8. There were so many gangs and knife fights that the school cafeteria didn't have any knives at all, not even butter knives.

That was in 1964.

School shootings weren't a thing back then, at least not yet.

Analogously, millions of people in the US have guns and don't commit (or want to commit) school shootings either. Even so, gun control proposals are a popular response.

It's obviously true that media coverage of school shootings isn't sufficient to make people commit them, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a factor in people's decisions. (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion)

> ... A study conducted in 2015 suggest that the Columbine shooters inspired a minimum of 21 mimicked shooting and 53 attempted plans to commit such an act in the U.S. over a 15-year period. ... (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764218763476 )

It has absolutely nothing to do with funding.

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Oh crap, I know where that is.. . . . Ironically (or not) right next to the Alcohol/Tobacco/Firearms store.

Colorado has the highest per capita mass shootings since Columbine.

The altitude makes people insane. Literally. High altitude can impair cognition and increase symptoms of mental illness.

Make Colorado wild again.

Sure what's your analysis? I understand it as relating to NCLB in that students are entitled to an education or being provided an alternative at the schools expense.

It’s the expulsion process itself, and the look for districts when they expel students.

It is inaccurate to dismiss the role of American culture and ideals in our current issues. Other countries do have measured differences in the reported mental anguish etc... it is not equal across countries.

How do you think somehow schools districts all across this county came to the same conclusion regarding expulsion, if expulsion is not related to funding as per NCLB's requirements?

Can you expand on what you mean by "huge proliferation of guns now?" Gun ownership rates have mostly flattened or dropped over the last 20 years. (https://www.pewpewtactical.com/gun-ownership-through-the-years/ )

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I work at a school and can attest it's ridiculously hard to expel a student and it's impossible if the student has any kind of IEP or a 504 plan because they're considered special education students and there's a ton of regulations schools have to follow for those kinds of students. I've had students violently assault staff members without any consequences because the administration is only allowed to suspend them from school 10 days total for the year so the administration feels they have to choose those days wisely, which the student knows so they know they can just keep assaulting people and have no reason to stop.

To expel a student for behavior issues requires the school to find and pay for their education somewhere else. Unfortunately, these few available alternative schools are selective and will then insist after a while that the student is ready to return to regular school since there's always a wait list and they want to free up a spot for another student. Then the student returns, can't cope with the regular school and does something that gets them kicked out and placed in a different alternative school. It's a horrible cycle and the returned students are usually more dangerous because they want to do something to get themselves out of the regular school again. I've had newly returned students try to commit suicide at school because they can't cope in a regular education system, and it's frankly terrifying as an educator.

Everything has to do with funding.

The POS who killed two people, who was so well known to be a POS that he had to be searched every day in order to attend school, shall never commit another crime again. The sad part (apart from the death of two innocent people) is that he didn't just kill himself first. The world is a slighter safer place today - happy ending to a sad story.

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Yeah let's bury our heads in the sand and it'll go away.

Not a Pearl Jam fan, I see.

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Curious, why doesn't Denver schools have an alternative school in-district?

My much smaller school district had an alternative school so they didn't expell them, they just moved to self-paced alternative schools. They can go there to continuation high schools voluntarily or the day schools non-voluntarily. We have both. Day schools are for behavioral and attendance issues.

One of our continuation schools has a full preschool program for free for students and takes babies 6+ weeks, so kids can finish their high school at an accelerated pace or catch up and get daycare. Have a diploma, not a GED. Totally free. They even hold parenting classes. If you enroll your child there one class per day is in there learning parenting skills.

They also have a at-risk student school for habitually truant/ violent students who didn't or won't divert into continuation schools and an online school platform for kids who are sick or dealing with other issues and can't attend on campus. You can also get shoved there pending explusion and movement into alternative programs.

Like, why wouldn't Denver have alternative programs? It costs the district here, not their original school. The state gives extra funding for it, even.

My city is smaller than Denver, too.

Probably some handwringing about the school to prison pipeline.

My district just runs those alternative programs in-district and gets state funding for them.

Colorado seriously doesn't pay for alternative schools?

Colorado doesn’t even allow students to be expelled for more than a year.

Law here

Explanation here

They very well could have alternative schools but that does not mean if alternative schools have the resources to students, and what I have seen is that many alternative schools could be 8 to 10 times the cost, meaning the district would have to cover that student at that price with parental approval for the student to be transferred. So if the parent has been involved and been a roadblock every which way the school can't do anything besides keep them in district.

I know for a fact that there is an alternative high school in Fort Collins, so if there aren't any options in Denver, that would be pretty wild.

A safety plan like this can also be written for a student that has at one point discussed suicide. So, he may not have been perceived as a threat to others.

Schools are not adequately funded to have full time school nurses in many cases, let alone mental health professionals. And even if they do have those professionals, it is likely a case load that is beyond absurd.

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I tend to agree with you on this in about every situation, but not this one. I would be curious if this student was on an IEP. That is typically the primary reason students with extreme behaviors are not expelled. Trust me when I tell you that a few thousand dollars in funding for one kid isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether to expel or not.

I'm a bit dubious about the website you have linked. In discussions about guns there are so many rabidly anti/pro gun groups. I try to stay away from these.

What I am referencing is that the guns bought over time don't go away. They stay in the population. We can make gun control laws but about half of Americans already own guns. Any new laws won't really affect this fact. . . . .irk . . . I'm no expert on laws not guns so maybe there is a gun control law that would cut down on our suicides and murders but I am a bit dubious. I would be happy to change my mind if you can argue for a way we can improve things.

Precisely this. The US is unique in how deeply dystopian our society is compared to other "first-world" countries. We have a very inaccessible healthcare system, pervasive economic insecurity, a deeply atomized and divided society. All of this and other things add up to emotional stress that inevitably breaks some people. The idea that we can just get rid of guns and everything will be fine is ignoring the actual issues.

Huh, really? As a non-American, I've read someone else talk about how Columbine changed everything. What's your thoughts on how and when things changed?

They weren’t killed I don’t think

The obvious solution to all of this is more restorative justice sessione between two soon to be murder victims, the murderer, and a random teacher who took a two hour online class on how to conduct restorative justice sessions. Absolutely no need for anything else, not social workers or psychologists or police, nope, those are all bad

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Well then, even better.

Eh, depends.

I was damned near expelled after a series of terrorist threat allegations that were proven in a courtroom later to be falsified as a means to have me expelled. The reason for the accusations?

I was attempting to talk to a guidance counselor. Seriously.

Police exist for assault charges.

> ... What I am referencing is that the guns bought over time don't go away. ...

Ah. I misunderstood. I thought that "huge proliferation of guns now" was intended to be about some kind of recent change in gun availability or gun ownership. I think that everyone agrees that there are hundreds of millions of guns in private hands in the US.

In case you care, it's not that hard to find other charts of gun ownership rates over time:

https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html

For reference about where Rand stands on gun policy:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA243-4.html

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This is so spot on. School in its current form is so inefficient that it becomes daily torture for a lot of kids. I can’t imagine we’re made to endure 18 years of sitting in a room listening to someone tell us something then quiz us over it again and again.

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We have two versions, the 'parent/ student agree' version which is usually like some truancy, minor behavioral or just... traditional school didn't work version. We also have the "you're at this school now, don't end up in prison" version. They're two separate campuses.

The "you're a danger" version is not in any way, shape or form a parental choice. You will go there. The regular school is no longer an option.

I wish kids knew that even though high school can be a borderline unbearable experience, your life will probably get significantly better after you graduate if you make good decisions.

Fuck that. Act right or get kicked out.

Kick that kid the fuck out. Also, what's up with the parents? I'm sure they are paragons of virtue.

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Jeremy, poor kid

You can absolutely suspend students with IEPs and 504s for more than ten days. You are required to hold a manifestation hearing and a superintendents hearing prior to giving more than ten. Purpose of the meetings is to prove, one way or the other, if the actions were a result of their disability and if the accommodations/modifications/programs outline in the IEP/504 have been adequately provided.

Source: Am special education teacher, have sat in on several of these meetings, had a student removed from school for the remainder of the year after making a threat in September.

Not the person you replied to, but IIRC "Columbine changed everything" generally means "raised widespread public awareness" for what had always happened occasionally and then vastly increased in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and then expanded again in the 2000s. There was a brief lull in the late-90s and then Columbine took place on April 20, 1999 ushering in the present epidemic of school shootings.

Others have correctly pointed out that while there was often school violence, mass school shootings were far rarer in the 1960s and 70s even though firearms were much easier to obtain then, and poverty rates were worse than today.

Many things changed in America since that time and no one knows if there was one cause or many. But it's interesting that the 1980s saw the birth of the internet, while the 1990s saw the first widespread social media. This same period also saw an enormous increase in psychiatric drugs prescribed for school children. The early 1980s also saw the infamous crack epidemic which fostered the explosive spread of modern gang culture.

Much later, President GHW Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, which has caused so many schools to end expulsions for behavioral problems (and to lower educational standards for test scores). Many educators discuss the negative impact of NCLB over on r/teachers. But there are probably other factors equally significant as all these; we only know that kids snap more violently and resort to guns more quickly now than they did two generations ago.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s the United States saw a sharp increase in gun and gun violence in the schools. According to a survey conducted by The Harvard School of Public Health "15% said that they had carried a handgun on their person in the past 30 days, and 4% said that they had taken a handgun to school in the past year." a sharp increase from just five years earlier. By 1993, the United States saw some of the most violent time is school shooting incidences. ... (then) the late 1990s started to see a major reduction in gun related school violence, but was still plagued with multiple victim shootings.

https://www.k12academics.com/school-shootings/history-school-shootings-united-states

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It's a 17 year old kid who was obviously very troubled with no guidance from those tasked to raise him and you just want him to kill himself instead of getting the help he truly needed. This is why we have a problem in this country; we don't want to help people, we just want them to go away so we don't have to deal with them. It's just such a gross way of thinking that it's shocking to see it written out and then up voted by others.

> you are frisked and treated like a criminal every day

There is no universe in which a kid gets to continue attending school in-person after bringing a weapon in, and constant searches aren't required as a condition of that impressive display of societal willingness to not just immediately crumple an objectively dangerous-to-other-kids child up and throw them away.

The latter requires an educational lawyer to act on behalf of the school, which the school will again avoid at all costs especially if the parent or guardian is not on board and/or is actively being a roadblock to proper placement which is not uncommon. You will go there pending proper paperwork.

Thanks for the links. This looks like a fairly decent organization.

Again, I'm all for cutting down on gun violence and specially suicide I'm just not sure what public policy would be effective.

Hell, there was an alternative school or two down in Canon City back when I lived there, and that was in the 90s-2000s.

There's no way they don't have at least ONE alternative school in Denver.

> … he was under a school safety plan requiring him to undergo daily pat down searches upon entering the school.

If there is that much of a concern just expel the kid and get it over with. Some troubled kids can’t be saved.

The fact that school (not high school) is such an unbearable experience is the problem. I was telling my wife how crazy it is that if you let your parents tell you about school when they went, and ask your kids about school now... even though allllll these decades have passed... it's the same.

It's like we can't do basic science. School is a prison. Are prisons violent?

weird.

Yes restorative justice caused this and not lack of gun control

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It's not inconsistent to want gun control and also have the sense that school districts have utterly failed at implementing any sort of functioning behavior modification system that is acceptable to progressives. Schools can't help with gun control. School administrations are directly responsible for keeping their students safe and part of that means controlling students with disciplinary measures.

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Thank you for the insight. It seems like school districts need more funding for building and employees. That seems to be a core issue across the country.

He was on a behavioral plan that required him to get patted down by admins before he entered the school, and he shot two admins in the leg yesterday while that was happening (Dean of culture, and Dean of Restorative Justice).

It's also been revealed that he was expelled by near by Cherry Creek school district last year, so I think that he has had a long history of problems and East, which is a fairly prestigious school in Denver, decided that they could work with him without law enforcement involvement.

This is all following a fatal shooting a block away from the school a month or so ago, a student protest that followed, and several other incidents at the school.

But the bigger issue is that Denver schools are poorly run, have terrible admins, hemorrhage teachers by the dozen, and don't pay anything, so the superintendents solution that will bring an SRO to every school in the area, won't solve the pernicious structural issues here, and the community doesn't trust the police because they are either shooting innocent people or doing absolutely nothing.

In short, this problem is a symptom a much larger issues because things have gotten really bad. And, as an educator, I want two questions answered: Why the fuck was this kid allowed at school if he needed pat downs? And what the fuck were the admins thinking?

Then there is the race thing. Predominately white school districts booting predominately young black men always causes problems.

You’re just making wild assumptions though. We know for a fact a gun was involved. Everything you’re saying is just wild speculation that fits your worldview

Dean of restorative justice was one of the people that got shot.

Fascinating read, thank you. I was really under the impression that shootings were a thing in the US since public schools, honestly. I can now better understand why the problem is so divisive.

I think you deserve more lines, but the only thing that comes to my head is that the sense of defeat on dealing with this issue is what has made me believe it was a thing since the 19th century.

I’ll wager you’re not in the US Southeast. I remember this ‘up North’ but nothing like this exists in many, many states.

Education isn't designed to educate, it's designed to sort and grade.

It filters for people who are ideal cogs in a 19th-century factory.

Fellow special ed teacher here, you are spot on, the only issue is if the manifestation hearing finds that the discipline issue was a result of the disability, that's when it gets murky (so I have been told, I have never seen it first hand).

they can't wait for the next one

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We used to live in the neighborhood near that high school. It would be incredibly easy to get a gun on the street if he had some money.

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They're just expelled to a different type of school if they are. Kids have a right to be educated. If he'd been at Wendy's rather than a school. . . .

This is the best thing (outside of taking the guns away) that could have been done. I suspect they prevented something much worse from happening.

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The ones that [I] knew about ended up in other schools. (Possibly ones that specialized in maintaining discipline and safety.)

If the last decision in life you make is to shoot two of the people who were actually trying to give you a chance at life, risking their own lives so he could stay on a regular school and didn’t have to get bussed in to a juvenile prison “classroom”

• then I really don’t think he was going to magically become a decent human being after graduating.

He's dead, Jim

If you wanted to be more clear then you should have had empathy in your original comment. But you didn't. So fuck off with your backtracking bullshit and maybe start writing clearly instead of unsympathetic hot takes that get you up votes.

No child left behind was so poorly implemented and funded that the US ditched it, and rightfully so.

I went to school during that. It was a disaster.

The schools didn't get proper funding or backing to pull it off properly.

I get that's what people would have wanted. But many of these kids are not born this way. I would rather have them be able to get help. Why does this keep happening? Is it the parents not "parenting". Is it that the kid needs psychiatric help. Did something happen to the kid when he/she was younger, etc etc etc. Yes, there are those, where you could have the best childhood & still go out and murder. But JFC kids should not have those thoughts. They also should not have to go through depression or be bullied. This world is doing something seriously wrong, that this keeps happening, yet were not changing for the better. It's not only the weapons. Why are we so unable to stop this before it even gets that far???

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Lines up with when the internet started to really take off too. It's a great thing but at the same time allows troubled people to reinforce their issues. Then add on the media constantly going on about it which makes copycats more likely.

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