School shooting as "terrorism"?

Terrorism and making terroristic threats are two completely different crimes despite the similar name. In this case, there was no threat before hand although it appears copy cats made school threats all over Michigan and those would be terroristic threats.

I agree, and isn't there something about parents being responsible for dependent children's actions? If they steal a car, the parents pay the damages.

I doubt the prosecutor would charge them if there was no hope of them sticking. She's saying they knew, they ignored it, they insisted he stay in school that day... Personally, if that was my child and we'd just had that meeting, I'd take him out of there and book a psychiatric appt immediately.

Do you think they'll charge him as an adult?

Yes, they've already charged him as an adult. I'm leaning away from charging children as adults even for a crime this heinous but I understand how the victims see it.

Just read this about the culpability of schools:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/04/us/oxford-high-school-responsibility-legal.html

Here we go again with this nonsense.

Every week in every high school in America kids are sent to the office for expressing violent thoughts or ideas. Some are sent for writing stories about death. Some are sent for using finger guns. Some have decided to be Satanists and drink the blood of their enemies. Some have decided to be vampires. Some of them are Black Lives Matters teenagers who say they want to kill cops.

My niece was sent to the office because some idiot teacher read her creative writing about being a vampire and worshiping Satan. Instead of either 1) handing back the assignment with constructive criticism or 2) engaging with a creative student on her terms with a sense of humor.. this teacher decided to treat my niece as a threat.

It is easy in hindsight to go over this case and highlight what people who know nothing about schools or education or adolescence thinks went wrong. It is bullshit.

If the answer to the one out of a million students who did something horrible is to lock up the 999,999 students who are creative and unique... the cost is too high.

Now everyone will demand that schools punish nonconformity. It is nonsense.

I rather agree with you here Max. Hindsight is too easy. But the real problems is that that people are looking for anyone to blame...often other than the person responsible (hindsight without blame isn't much of an issue)

If teachers are going to get blamed for failing to identify what is a complex, resource intensive area to identify & 'police'...which they likely have neither the resources, nor the training, nor the investigative power to determine whether the kid is fantasising, just troubled, or the real deal....then they are going to take the path that doesn't get them in trouble - such as treating all volatile writings or behaviours as threats, or as inidicators of serious threats.

The concept of Blame, in my view, is one of the most insidious, corrosive concepts in the modern world. I prefer to see the world as contributing circumstances and personal responsibility. As far as I can see, that is the only way to take responsibility for every part of who you are...and in relation to this thread - to properly problem solve (because once you 'blame' you tend to stop problem solving), and in the case of kids like your niece - to not treating everyone as if they were in the same boat (which happens when the individual contributing circumstances are not considered)

That said - if someone says, like in your example, they want to kill cops, then they are responsible for their own words & actions and there should be consequences (that again, look at the contributing circumstances, the decisions, and come to a fair consequence).

But we live in a world of blame because:

- media looks for people to blame (as it is much more emotive than considering the contributing circumstances, so it sells)
- people watch the media spin on events constantly, and end up buying into the concept of blame (then promoting it to others through blame, or accepting blame)
- sufficient blame culture has developed that people actually think it is normal, and right, to blame (again, I consider it a very unhealthy, corrosive concept)

- people expect perfection of others (though rarely of themselves. Lawsuits for 'negligence' against doctors are a perfect example. If ever there was a place made for mistakes, medicine is certainly near the top)
- people have little idea of the complexity of the things they expect to be solved / perfect (again, Doctors/Medicine is a leading example. Policing another)
- people see a 'system' rather than the imperfect humans that make up the system, and blame a system they expect to be perfect (which in effect blames the imperfect humans who are the system)

- people think money can solve everything (ie. throw money at it. Money can't solve everything)
- they think there is endless money in 'the system' (there isn't. The level of debt that keeps getting taken on tells us this)

...and in holding those ideas...support the concepts that support 'blame'.

This by the way, is not having a go at any poster here. It is something I've noticed growing more and more entrenched as the decades pass.

Legislators abuse terms all the time when they pass laws.

Yes. Like I said to Engineer, our legislators abuse terms all the time when they pass laws. Some 12 gauge shotguns even count as WMDs under federal law.

Hopefully the courts will force the government to treat them fairly.

But its only manslaughter. In the worst case scenario of them not making bail and then later being convicted, they should be up for parole soon after sentencing.