During the 2002-2003 school year, there were 16 school-associated violent deaths of students in the United States. This included 3 shootings, 6 suicides, 2 murder-suicides, 4 stabbings and 1 “other.” Granted that this is 16 too many, it still translates into less than one violent death per 1,000,000 students enrolled, or 0.0001%. Kids ages 5 to 19 are at least 70 times more likely to be murdered away from school than in school. I’m not trying to discount these deaths. If it were my kid I’d be devastated, and my heart goes out to the families and friends of those that died. But the fact remains that I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than of having my kid die from violent crime at school.
Hudson, Mass., population 18,000 or so, is a quiet, predominantly white, relatively affluent community about 30 miles from Boston. Hudson bills itself as an, “unpretentious community with a strong sense of tradition, a tolerance for differences and a willingness to embrace change.” There are about 3025 students enrolled in Hudson’s 6 public and 3 private schools. The city-data.com crime index for this period is low — 66.9 vs. the US average of 330.6. In 2002, there were 255 total reported crimes in Hudson, of which 3 were assaults. There were no murders in Hudson, in school or out, in 2002. Zero. Nil. Goose egg. Nor were there any in 2001.
What does the second paragraph have to do with the first? This from an AP news article on Yahoo:
Election Booths in Schools Draw Concern
Tue Sep 28,10:23 AM ET Elections – AP
HUDSON, Mass. – Dozens of parents have signed a petition asking town officials to remove election booths from schools out of concern for terrorism.
Say what?!? Parents in Hudson are that afraid that terrorists are going to strike the small schools in their sleepy little town? Why?
Sally Morgan cited the potential for terrorists to try to disrupt the Nov. 2 presidential election, as well as the school hostage crisis in Russia earlier this month in a petition sent to the town’s Board of Selectmen.
Ah! I get it! Half a world away in the midst of a brutal, decade-long revolution, a school hostage crisis ended in a bloody battle between Chechen freedom fighters and Russian commandos. That’s sure to be repeated in Hudson! And because Dubya wants us to be afraid, in the vain hope that fright will (1)encourage us to vote for him and (2) keep the focus away from the real issues.
Somehow I think that Sally’s logic may be a little flawed. But Sally isn’t alone:
The petition, signed by 125 parents, asks town officials to move polling places to more secure locations such as the town library, fire stations and churches.
Is a church or library really more secure than a school? That makes me wonder a bit about Hudson’s priorities. Let’s keep our books and altars secure. Damn the kids! ???
Selectman Joseph J. Durant argued that pulling the election booths would rob students of an opportunity to see how democracy works. He also denied a threat to children exists.
“I think when fear and insecurity is introduced into Americans’ everyday lives in something as simple and fundamental as this, it is a sad state of affairs,” he said.
I have to agree with Durant on this. We should not be living in fear. We should not be teaching our children to live in fear. There isn’t a bogeyman behind every bush. There isn’t a terrorist stalking every school. Chances are very small that we will be blown up at our polling places as we vote. Chances are vanishingly small that doing so would interrupt the election enough to change the outcome. The citizens of Hudson are pretty darn safe.
Morgan has also taken her concerns to the town’s School Committee, which has reviewed voting day security at the schools.
Maybe that will calm Sally down a bit. If not, I have a lottery ticket to sell her.
feed for comments on this post.
Did we think terrorists would board our planes (Boston – 30 miles from here) and use them as weapons, killing 3,000 innocent people? Why are we waiting for something to happen before we secure our schools? The threats are real, to disrupt our election, and what a better place than a school? Chances are that it won’t happen here in Mayberry, but what about elsewhere? I’m not only concerned for Hudson’s children, I’m concerned for America’s children. If I can make a point maybe other’s will follow and take them out of the schools and find a more secure location other then a school filled with innocent children. The schools are open to the public and it’s not okay! We have 2 registered level 3 sex offenders that either work or live in Hudson, what’s to say they won’t come by to vote, or use it as an invitation to get up-close-and-personal with our children. Wake up people!
1Remark from Sally Morgan — Tuesday, 10/5/2004 @ 10:09 AM
Well, if they are level-3 sex offenders, I’ll hazard a guess that they’ve been convicted of a felony. And that means that they won’t be coming by because felons cannot legally register to vote. So I think the Hudson schools don’t have much to fear regarding sex offenders taking that chance to get “up close and personal” with kids. And that’s exactly the kind of fear-based histrionics I’m talking about.
I can’t speak for Hudson, but here in Oregon we are not in the midst of a bloody revolution. We do not have armed rebels fighting the government. I know my neighbors. While it’s true that not all of them look just like me, none of them are terrorists.
As to “what better way to disrupt the election,” I can think of lots of ways. How about taking out one of the major candidates? It need not be Bush, Cheney, Kerry or Edwards. How about one of the more visible Senate races? Or blowing up a freeway or a train station? Or a police station? Or disrupting an airport? Or blowing up a ship in a major harbor? Car bombs simultaneously in all of the state capitals? I could go on and on.
If you want to be safe, then you’d better put bars on all of your windows and put in a security system and keep your family inside. Be sure not to answer the door or the phone. And even then you have no guarantee of continued and absolute safety.
You can distrust your neighbors and teach your kids to distrust them. You can look for bogeymen behind all of the bushes and teach your kids to do so. You can live in fear, and you can teach your children to live in fear. You can react to every bit of hysteria that comes your way. Or not. Your choice.
I choose “not.”
2Remark from Judy — Wednesday, 10/6/2004 @ 6:26 AM
Do you read the news at all? We have peeping toms in town exposing themselves in the windows, a serial killer on the loose (granted they’re killing drug seeking prositutes in our lovely suburb of Worcester, and dumpingn their bodies here). A student also was arrested in the last day or two in Massachusetts for planning a Columbine-like massacre in his school. And what about the 64 year old man that hit the gas instead of the brake and plowed his vehicle into 12 people at a school, leaving a mother in critical condition and her 5 year old son losing a leg and may lose the other. The level-3 sex offenders may not be able to vote, but the school is open to the public, and you don’t need to provide identification at all. All you would have to do is take an envelope out of a mailbox, go to the poll and state a name and address. If the person that you gave is not a registered voter, then pick another mailbox. It’s that simple. So call me paranoid, call me whatever you wish, but I care about the children of the U.S. and their safety, not just on election day, but every day. Homeland Security has a full plate and is thinking of all of those things that you mentioned, and the terrorists know that too. So now what do they do, pick something that we haven’t thought to secure yet? I will keep my kids home that day and urge everyone that has children in polling schools to as well. Wake up and smell the safety issues, before something tragic happens.
3Remark from Sally Morgan — Thursday, 10/7/2004 @ 7:30 AM
I take it that you are one of those people who do read the news and believe what it reports. Do you understand that the news media is a business, and as such needs to make a profit in order to continue to be in business? How does it make a profit? By getting lots of people to read and watch so that it can sell lots of advertising. How does it keep ratings up? By reporting the most sensationalized stories.
Do you understand that the crime rate in America, including violent crime, has actually been falling? You may not, if you rely on the news media only.
It hardly seems worth it to respond to the incredible number of red herrings you threw into your comment. But for the sake of argument, I will.
At school during class sessions? Why is this more likely to happen at school during an election, when there are many people there voting? I hardly find it pleasant for some jerk to expose himself. But neither do I equate a flasher with a terrorist.
So are you implying that a serial killer who preys on prostitutes in Worcester is suddently going to switch to children in Hudson simply because polls are in schools and it might be a good chance to grab a kid with a crowd of people around? Please. You do understand that serial killers rarely change their type of chosen victim or their MO?
They arrested a boy here last year, too, under similar circumstances. It is too bad that there are few very troubled kids in our schools. But again, what does this have to do with an election?
Yet another red herring. An accident that had nothing to do with voting or elections. A tragedy, yes, but an accident nonetheless that removing polling from schools would not have prevented. When I was small, a man had a heart attack while driving and crashed his car into our house, striking my bedroom and causing considerable damage. Fortunately nobody in the house was injured. It was an accident. If my mother had followed your logic, she would have taken me out of school because it might happen there, too. Or maybe we would have moved. But staying home would not prevent someone else from hitting our house, and moving would not have prevented a car from hitting our new house. In the many years since that accident, no other car has ever struck that house. See? One accident does not imply another.
And you need to provide ID and sign your name. And most schools do not allow anyone to freely wander the halls, whether they are voting or not. In every school I have ever voted in for as long as I have been voting, polling was in a specific location – usually the gym or cafeteria. Voters were not allowed outside that area and kids gave up the use of that area for the day and were not allowed near the polls. If your schools are different, then you probably need to talk about day-to-day security with your school board.
Why do you believe that libraries and churches would somehow be more secure or less of a target?
I listed a number of other ways that elections could be disrupted, and you replied:
Well, by your definition then the schools are pretty safe because that has been thought of. And the fact that Homeland Security is looking into that too is documented by the recent finding of several school floor plans on a laptop in Iraq. Of course the media drew the conclusion that it must have been a terrorist plot a la Russia. But the FBI never implied that to the schools that were contacted. The man who used the laptop was doing research on American education policy. He had no connections to either Iraqi insurgents or al Qaeda. So see what factual information you can gather by listening to the news? Of course warning that terrorists are plotting to take over one of our schools probably means better ratings. The truth is so much more mundane.
The warning to school districts to watch for people spying on their schools or buses came not from the FBI or Homeland Security, but from the Education Department. It was a CYA warning in reaction to the Russian tragedy, and nothing more.
If you truly believe that terrorists will try to find targets that we do not suspect and have not thought of, then by definition you will not be able to plan for such an attack. But if being afraid keeps your boat floating, then go for it. I still refuse to live in fear.
4Remark from Judy — Saturday, 10/9/2004 @ 10:51 AM
“And you need to provide ID and sign your name. And most schools do not allow anyone to freely wander the halls, whether they are voting or not.”
You couldn’t be more wrong! No one is ID’d where we vote. The officer was stationed inside the room until we brought up the issue, and now they will be stationed outside of the room, but the entrances are not fully monitored. You mentioned the “schools” that won’t let it happen, as if the principal, during her everyday hectic job has time to monitor election day, which in fact she hates having it being imposed on her school because it’s such a huge disruption and she feels VERY uncomfortable with having 2,000 unscreened intruders coming in and out of her building. You sure don’t speak like a mom concerned about her children.
The instances of the accident involving the elderly man, the peeping-tom, the teen being arrested, the serial-killer, are meant to quell the inane thoughts of the original poster that we live in a small town in which nothing much happens. Which is wrong.
Your picking apart of my post
5Remark from Sally Morgan — Tuesday, 10/12/2004 @ 6:54 AM
Then it sounds to me like your state needs to look at election procedures. Here, when we still voted at polls (we vote by mail now), we had to show ID.
Then your school board probably needs to work on school security at all times, not just during elections.
What I said was that most schools do not allow unidentified strangers to wander around in their halls. Again I’m speaking of Oregon so I suppose that your state may be different. But if it is, then, again, the school board needs to work on school safety at all times, not just during elections.
Are you trying to hurt my feelings or something? Good grief. What a cheap shot. You know absolutely nothing about me. Why in the world would you think that I care what you think of me? At least I don’t Google my own name. If you really are Sally Morgan.
I’m the original poster. Nobody here but us chickens, Sally. And since the only one of your “examples” actually in Hudson is the peeping Tom, and since I looked up crime stats in Hudson before making my original statement, I’ll stand by my assertation that nothing much happens there.
6Remark from Judy — Wednesday, 10/13/2004 @ 1:12 PM
Well “Mom”, you don’t know anything about our town with the exception of OLD information and statistics. I have many more instances of crime, but you’re not worth the time in going into them. We will have about 1500-2000 entering each school to vote, during school hours, traffic and safety issues are alone enough to warrant dismissing students. I’m done argueing with someone as ignorant as yourself, google this. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that everyone’s children are safe on Nov. 2.
7Remark from Sally Morgan — Friday, 10/15/2004 @ 6:19 AM
It does not matter how many past crimes you come up with. None of them have happened in your schools and none of them have anything to do with this election. You are perpetrating the same histrionic scare tactics that the Bush administration uses in its attempt to keep the American Public frightened and stupid. Watch for the “terrorist alert level” to go up right before the election. I refuse to buy into it.
8Remark from Judy — Sunday, 10/17/2004 @ 1:50 AM
John Kerry has never done anything here in Massachusetts to our benefit in his 20 years in the Senate, what makes anyone think he can do anything to benefit the U.S. if he’s elected? He’s all talk – he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. The alert came from Homeland Security for each state to do what’s necessary to protect it’s citizens for this election, and Kerry has done nothing except collect a paycheck while campaigning and abandoning his state and the safety issues here.
9Remark from Sally Morgan — Tuesday, 10/19/2004 @ 6:46 AM
That’s funny… I thought you were “done arguing with me.”
10Remark from Judy — Tuesday, 10/19/2004 @ 6:46 PM
I wasn’t argueing with you. I was making a statement of fact. Be safe, be stupid, your choice.
11Remark from Sally Morgan — Wednesday, 10/20/2004 @ 6:30 AM
:::shrug::: Live in fear. Your choice.
12Remark from Judy — Thursday, 10/21/2004 @ 7:07 AM