Author leads School Safety Summit at MCCC

On Oct. 23, MHS students attended the 2019 School Safety Summit held at the Monroe County Community College. Students from every school in the county were in attendance. The featured speaker was Dave Cullen, a New York Times best selling author for his book “Columbine.” Cullen spoke on topics including the Columbine school shooting, his journalism experiences, and ways to prevent mass shootings. 

Cullen researched and studied the Columbine shooting for ten years before writing his book. He specifically focused his research on the two shooters, learning their differences, motives, and how their mental health played a factor.  He presented a diagram that showed each mass shooting and who that shooter studied. Cullen learned that these two killers set the track for all mass shooters after the event. 

“They (mass shooters) study frequent killers and nearly all of them are studying their processors,” Cullen said. “But every one of the killers on this page studied the Columbine killers.” 

Cullen said that the most important person to stop school shootings are the students. 

“80 percent of the shooters told someone they were going to do it,” Cullen said. “Kids always want to tell someone, they want to brag about it. The vast majority actually told more than one person.” 

However, Cullen also said that the problem is that they told it as a joke.

“What’s really crucial for us is as this continues to go on is you are our early warning system,” Cullen said. “The most important person that can stop someone from shooting up your high school is you.”

Senior Brianna Chamers is the president of the Interact Club and attended the summit. Chamers said she went to the summit to learn tips on safety within schools. 

“I attended the school safety meeting to learn more about what has gone on in the past with different schools and ways I can work to stay safe in school and help others be safe,” Chamers said. 

Senior Libby Kelley attended the summit with PPI. Kelley said the summit opened her eyes to the importance of focusing on the people committing the shootings. 

“I think we often get caught up in the gun politics of mass shootings, and yes they are super important, but this summit opened my eyes to the people who commit them instead,” Kelley said. “Prevention can include helping those who are suicidally depressed, and until the summit, I had never really thought of it like that.”