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American Morning
Columbine Massacre Brings Change in Other Schools
Aired April 20, 2001 - 10:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Today marks the second anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School, the worst school shooting in U.S. history. And maybe fittingly, it's a day marked with lingering fear and remembrance, as well.
The Littleton, Colorado school where 14 students died and 26 people were injured is closed today. The anniversary comes a day after nearly three dozen families of the victims reached a $2.5 million settlement with the parents of the gunman and the providers of the gun used in that attack.
Meanwhile, the echoes of that gunfire and other school shootings around the country have brought about another change, as CNN's Charles Feldman explains.
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CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a parent's 21st century nightmare, reports of a shooting at the school where their child is a student. And while such incidents are rare despite the attention they get when they do occur, the demand for cops on campus is growing each year.
CHERYL BROWN, PRINCIPAL: We want kids to think twice about what consequences, what prices they will pay and those prices go beyond school law. If they're in violation of a misdemeanor or a felony, then it becomes an issue involving the penal code.
FELDMAN: To help make that point to students, Saugus High School in Northern Los Angeles County has Allen Budge (ph), a deputy of the local sheriff's department assigned to the school.
ALLEN BUDGE: Good morning.
FELDMAN: Budge is everywhere.
BUDGE: Hey, Chad.
FELDMAN: He knows the students, goes to many school events. As the principal of the school bluntly puts it...
BROWN: He's another set of eyes and ears.
BUDGE: It's a lot easier to mold and help confront potential problems before they happen than it is to try and deal with them after.
FELDMAN: According to a recent Department of Education report, during the 1997-98 academic school year, nearly 4,000 students aged five to 17 were expelled for bringing a gun to school. Perhaps partly in response to that, some 3,800 police officers have been stationed in at least 1,800 schools since 1998, their positions funded by a grant from the U.S. Justice Department's Cops In Schools program.
ELLEN SCRIVNER, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: The demand has been for police officers to come into the schools as community policing officers and that's quite different, because that treats the school as a community policing beat.
FELDMAN: And that often translates into a fast response. On the day we were taping at this southern California school, a student was called into the deputy principal's office because she overhead someone tell of a threat to a nearby school. Deputy Budge was already there.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: I'm not really close to her. We just started talking, she was like saying that this guy wants, he's planning this shooting.
FELDMAN: Deputy Budge quickly helped investigate the matter and says it has been determined that the issue is resolved. For all of the perceived benefits of a cop on campus, not everyone thinks it's such a cool idea. For one thing, says the author of "Culture Of Fear," the perception of an increased danger in schools is a false one.
DR. BARRY GLASSNER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: There's been school violence for a long time and actually it's lower now. Right now the situation is that a student is more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed in school.
FELDMAN: Others worry about the impact on young minds when Big Brother is always watching.
RAMONA RIPSTON, ACLU: What it really does is to, I think, give students the idea that it's OK to be watched all the time. It sends them a bad message that they're going to carry with them throughout life.
FELDMAN: Back at the school that Deputy Budge patrols, we asked some students what they think of cops on campus.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: He goes through everything and that's kind of cool cause he keeps all the like drugs and everything off campus.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It's an invasion of privacy because he can check everything.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It makes them see that, you know, there is somebody here that's trying to help the school to make sure that we don't go through problems and to make sure that nothing happens to our school or our community. FELDMAN: Cops in schools is a safety issue, but also a fiscal one. It costs money, a lot of money, to have officers assigned to public schools. But no one really knows if having a police officer on campus really makes a difference. There have been no studies yet, although one federal one is underway to be completed soon.
Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.
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