Riverton is an unincorporated town of about 600 people on old Route 66 in Kansas. Except for the Mother Road, the historic Eisler Bros. Store, lead mines and electrical plant, it doesn't draw much attention.
Except for now. Local authorities say they foiled an alleged plot by five Riverton High School students to start a Columbine-type massacre. The local sheriff says his department's investigation has uncovered details of threats against specific people, guns and the suspects' fascination with Hitler and Nazi Germany. Apparently, details of the plot were found on a myspace.com page of one of the suspects.
Joplin, Mo., is the closest big town to Riverton, and the Joplin Globe has a story about the alleged plot here. But the story has been picked up by news wires and disseminated nationwide.
About the only good thing you can say about this disturbing story is that no one was injured or killed.
UPDATE: The Joplin Globe has excellent coverage of the alleged plot in its Saturday edition. The curious thing is that charges still haven't been filed, and there's a question of whether the suspects are being jailed illegally.
I'm getting a suspicion that the case may be shaky. Could this alleged plot have been mere off-the-cuff comments and not a real conspiracy? It still would be dumb for a student to shoot off his mouth in such a way in a post-Columbine climate. But empty threats are still a far cry from attempted mass murder.
“About the only good thing you can say about this disturbing story is that no one was injured or killed.”
That’s a pretty terrific thing, don’t you think?
Sounds like somebody was really on the ball. Several somebodies, in fact — the school officials who found the myspace site, the kids who came forward to discuss the threats, and the sheriff who decided to dig a little deeper to figure out what these kids were up to. The students and teachers were protected, and the kids who were planning this attack were caught before they caused harm to themselves and others.
Hopefully those troubled kids will get the help they need, and the students and teachers as a whole will get a chance to examine their interactions, figure out what pushed these kids over the brink, and perhaps pull together a little more closely and be a little quicker to reach out to students who seem to be angry, sad, lonely, or just too prickly to like.