disturbing on several levels
Mid-April is the time of the year for school shootings in the US. This week in 2006 there were four foiled plots - at Riverton High School, Kansas; North Pole Middle School, Alaska; Pearl Junior High School, Mississippi, and one in Puyallup, Washington. The Columbine High School shootings took place on April 20 1999.Last October, I travelled to North Pole, Alaska, the site of one of the failed school shootings, to make a documentary about it for More 4. The documentary - Travels With My Camera - will be shown on May 2.
So far there's no word of the Virginia shooter's motive, although the tabloids are saying he was a jilted boyfriend. I suppose we'll never know what was going through his head, nor the Columbine shooters' heads, nor the heads of the many other school shooters who ended the day by killing themselves. Perhaps the most instructive thing about our visit to North Pole was meeting the father of one of the ringleaders of the shooting plot. Hearing his story, I think, goes some way towards understanding why American kids so frequently decide to enact this dark fantasy.
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