Law enforcementColumbine lessons helped thwart Tampa school tragedy

Jared Cano, suspected high school bomb plotter // Source: hln.be

Police, having learnt the lessons of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, was in a better position to prevent violence in Tampa, Florida, last week.. Jared Cano was arrested in a plan to bomb Freedom High School on its opening day. He had been expelled during the previous school year. It is not clear whether a tipster who notified police was someone from the school, but the Christian Science Monitor reports that Hillsborough County school superintendent MaryEllen Elia told CBS’s “The Early Show” that the district has worked hard to encourage people to speak up about anything suspicious that they see. She credited the district’s close relationship with the police for helping to thwart the plot.

“Schools have come to the realization that creating safe environments [ ] is a complex undertaking [ ] and that local police, local sheriffs are our partners and we have to embrace them, and I think that’s what happened in Tampa,” says William Modzeleski of the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

School administrators need to think about “looking at individual, behavior history, family history, looking to see if any mental health issues are involved, and if so, does that put the kid at higher risk [for violence],” says Kenneth Trump of National School Safety and Security Services.

The Monitor notes that many school districts have threat assessment teams to try to connect the dots if there is a troubled, and potentially violent, student in their mix.

Because he had been expelled and had had prior trouble with law enforcement, Cano would have been “red-flagged” had he stepped onto campus, Freedom High principal Chris Farkas told reporters.