Father of Columbine Victim: America 'Callous' to School Shootings
by Jim Brown
March 22, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Columbine victim's father is reacting to the worst U.S. school shooting since the Columbine tragedy almost six years ago.Authorities say the teenage boy who killed nine people in a shooting spree on Monday in Red Lake, Minnesota, first killed his grandfather and his grandfather's female companion. Jeff Weise reportedly then donned the man's police-issue gun belt and bulletproof vest before heading to the high school, where he shot students and teachers at random before killing himself.
Darrell Scott, whose daughter Rachel was a victim of the April 1999 Columbine shootings in Littleton, Colorado, believes the Red Lake rampage should have garnered more press attention.
"One of the things that concerns me ... is that I noticed there wasn't [much] exposure in the media to what had happened [in Red Lake]," Scott observes. "When Columbine's tragedy happened, there was massive coverage for months, and [now with] the second-largest shooting in American history in schools, it was like the third and fourth story in different places that I looked."
Scott says the anemic media coverage of this most recent incident indicates that Americans have become "callous" toward such things. He says what he told congressional leaders in 1999 still rings true.
"When I spoke then, I said that security guards and metal detectors were not the solution. [I stated] that this country has turned its back on God, and we have basically taken out all of our spiritual content and our moral content," he says. "We expose kids to violence through the media and then we ask the question, 'Why does this happen?' The answer is right in front of us if we just dare to look at it."
The Red Lake shootings come about one-and-a-half years after two classmates were fatally shot at a high school in Cold Spring, Minnesota.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
