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KILLING ME SOFTLY
Last Thursday a major event took place at the Williams Bay Junior/High School at about two p.m. in the afternoon. A kill list was uncovered. A young female student had apparently collected a number of names and then placed those names on a list she referred to (and titled) as a kill list. The event did not stop there. The follow-up paperwork detailed the methodology that might be used to do away with the other students on that list. This event is not being treated as a major threat event or a pre-terrorist activity but it sure bears deep and intense scrutiny.
This week’s letter to the editor is all about what happened. The letter was written by a concerned parent whose child’s name was on that list. What parent would not be concerned to the core? The letter to the editor was actually taken verbatim from a Facebook entry the parent had made in order to generate interest and report to the general public what happened.
Was she successful? It is very difficult to reach a lot of people with anything in America. Those voices that project outward, and give what is called the news today, are extremely protective about what and whom they will allow communicating using their media outlet as a venue. Most newspapers and nearly every radio and television station stopped taking comments from readers and viewers years ago (the GSR, however, takes all comments, and answers them, as long as the comments are decent in the presentation). The fact that everyone involved in this developing high threat case is a minor makes it extremely difficult to pursue in the American culture. Minors are protected in identity and actions from being revealed to the media or anyone outside of law enforcement, and law enforcement is prevented from revealing these identities, as well. What happened at Williams Bay High School is only partially available as a story, and without the write-up published on Facebook, and republished in the pages of the Geneva Shore Report today, there would be very little to go on.
To classify the event as non-threatening would be a disservice to everyone attending the school or even visiting. What has happened across the land, following the Columbine nightmare, has sensitized a nation to the fact that students and staff attending or teaching at all schools can quickly become victims to armed outsiders (or insiders) who decide to go into an educational facility and wantonly slaughter unarmed innocents? No report, like the one being written here, should ever be ignored or overlooked when it comes to defending the community’s schools against the potential of mortal danger. It is important that the Facebook entry, published later in this issue, be read and absorbed by every citizen.
This incident should receive the full attention of every law enforcement agency in the geographic area surrounding Geneva Lake. That the initial reports have come back with the local police department allegedly stating (if it really did) that there is no credible threat, then the very definition of ‘credible threat’ might need to be changed. This incident, without a student coming forward bravely to inform the staff, might have turned into a disaster causing loss of young lives and placing a blight upon the lake that might never be removed.