Comments on: Another Knoxville shooting: conclusions we cannot draw

By: Ann

Ann — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:01:28 +0000

While standing in a group of people last night at a fundraiser honoring women who do remarkable work in our community, someone wondered aloud, “If this shooting happened at an inner-city school in a larger city, would anyone even hear about it?” Another individual in the group said that he had grown up in Philadelphia (rather recently since he was maybe 26) and that shootings and violence were so common in their schools that they didn’t even make the news. This doesn’t make the shooting at Central High in Knoxville any less tragic but we are also in an age of media frenzy and instant radio/TV/computer coverage. I mourn for the families and kids involved in the Central community but also for the rest of us. I think I liked it better when we didn’t hear all the worst news in the world instantaneously. I’m not an ostrich but I don’t mind a little happiness with me morning coffee instead of constant gloom.

By: almostgotit

almostgotit — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:17:44 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Alice! I’m glad you have found a safe place for your children, wherever that may be.

My son recently graduated from a scrappy and diverse little public high school in Knoxville (neither Karns nor Central) that combines a high drop-out rate with (by far) the highest percentage of National Merit Finalists in the county.

More to the point, though: one time my son skipped breakfast and fainted at this same school… and the school had an ambulance and several EMT’s on site in nearly nothing flat, because that’s their protocol whenever there is any possibility of trauma or injury. The two shootings were random and senseless; what happened at Karns, however, was not random, but rather an accident that both should have been anticipated and could easily have been prevented.

By: Alice Gold

Alice Gold — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:46:02 +0000

I’m not certain, but I am pretty sure that Karns is a much better school than Central as far as test scores and student discipline is concerned.

I think that both tragedies are senseless, but should be forgiven.

I also am sooooo happy that my kids are still in elementary school, where it seems that for now, they are still safe. (Only because we transferred them out of our inner city school with major discipline problems) My daughter got her hair cut three times in the 2nd grade and she was a well liked student at her old school.

I think that public schools can still succeed, but we have got to get rid of the thugs and we obviously have to train staff members better on what actions to take in an emergency.

Overall, I was very pleased with how well Knox County did with securing all the schools today.

God bless the families of both victims…I cannot even imagine what they are going through.