Buffalo and Uvalde Shootings- America We Have a Problem

Special Edition Season Finale- A look at the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde with special attention to Red Flag Laws, Mental Health and Guns in the United States of America. Are there solutions? Are we willing to look at possible solutions and ourselves?

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Welcome back to education matters New York. I'm your host, Wayne Ackles. And this is a special edition of education in New York. I had originally not planned to be back from the hiatus until at least the middle of June, if not even a smidge later than that. But the events of the last couple of weeks prompted me to put together today's show. Before I get into today's show, there's a couple acknowledgments I want to make. One is one that slipped my mind when I announced the website previous week. And I meant to acknowledge six by six design and their owner, President chief cook and bottle washer, John Kelly. And he was a great collaborator and helping put the website together. If you have website design that you need done for a business, he's a great resource, and incredibly easy to work with. So I would recommend six by six design, if you're looking for someone to help you put a website together. Also, I want to give a quick shout out to my wife, who, when I told her I was doing this episode, she said, you know, Wayne, it's a lot better when you have a guest on the show. And she's told me that a number of times, and I agree with her. And I normally would prefer a guest on any of our shows as well. But I felt like the events of the last couple of weeks merited having some conversation. And I felt like I brought some perspective to it, even though it's going to be kind of a one sided conversation. But I will say that on the website. Now there is a way that if you do have comments, and you want to send those in, I will gladly be looking for those. And hopefully, again, that might lead to some dialogue as well. So the two events that I'm referring to, are the events that happen both in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. And they both have unique connections with schools. And I think that they're both worth taking a look at and in a lot of ways are interconnected in terms of their connections with schools. And I want to start with the buffalo incident. And when I first thought I was going to be doing this show, I really thought it would just be about the buffalo incident. I was putting together the research and was getting ready to do an episode related to what had happened in Buffalo and the role of red flag laws as they relate to schools. And then the events that in Uvalde happened. So I'm going to talk about both. And I'm going to spend a little less time on the buffalo shooting and more time on the Uvalde shooting due to its tragic nature and the bigger implications it has for the bigger conversation about a number of things. So first, when it what drew my attention to the buffalo shooting, besides the obvious tragedy, were some of the media reports that frankly, got under my skin a little bit when they referenced what had happened to the shooter when he was in his senior year. And they referenced that at his school district in Broome County, that he had been placed on a suspension. And it was due to making some concerning comments. And it was investigated. And eventually, he was allowed to return to graduate and then proceeded on with the rest of his life until the tragic events of a couple of weeks ago. One of the things that came out, and I shouldn't say came out, that's not really the way one of the things that was teased, or, frankly made a story by different members of the media was the following. And that was the insinuation that maybe the school had had a role to play in invoking New York's Red Flag Law. And I was a little disappointed because the two journalists that really caught my eye are two journalists that I respect a great deal. David Murer from ABC News and Jake Tapper from CNN, either, as I said, teased to get more people looking at the story or outright, you know, said that the school had not done its part in terms of not using the Red Flag Law to potentially take the guns away that led to the shooting. And I just wanted to comment on that briefly. So what the technical name for the Red Flag Law here in New York is is that they're actually what's known as an E RPO. Also known as an extreme risk protective order, they can be put together, and a judge can issue them, they can be brought to a judge by a spouse or other family members, law enforcement and schools for someone that they believe is not mentally in the right frame of mind to have firearms in their possession. And I think it's important to talk about a number a couple of things that at the time, why the school district might not have gone to the length of an extreme risk, protective order. I think one of the things that probably played a role is the nature of this law in terms of the power of that kind of power with a school district, I liken it to what happened with dasa, back in 2012. I remember when this red flag law passed in 2019, I remember thinking, you know, this is not something that school districts are going to probably jump to too quickly, especially here in upstate New York, where, frankly, you know, the gun culture is a pretty significant part of most of the rural districts here in the state. And so it's something that it would put it's a tremendous power that school officials could potentially wield. I think, frankly, school officials aren't in a big hurry to wield that power. As I said a minute ago, I likened it to what happened with the dasa law in 2012, where the influence of the school went really, for the first time with the ESA, beyond the school yard door, where we could intervene in a code of conduct kind of way, in the actions of people after school hours. This is a little bit different, because this isn't about necessarily a direct Code of Conduct violation, it could be a concern that hasn't, there hasn't been a breach of the Code of Conduct yet, depending on how their code is written. But to then make the next step to go to a judge to say that, you know, we, as a school district, think that a person's gun should be taken away. That's a pretty dramatic step. And I know that myself as an administrator, I would have been uncomfortable with it. I'm sure that there were superintendents that were also uncomfortable with that idea. That's the first thing. The other thing that I would think would also be an important piece to this is remembering that the school followed through and made sure this young man received a psych evaluation before returning back to school. That's critical. Because a district and I had done this in my own past, we don't want a student to come back, who's made a questionable remark or threat without a psych evaluation of some kind, where an outside professional has given their okay to say that that individual is no longer a threat to themselves and others. Now, you can argue that, and as I've argued on the show, is that in many situations, given how long it takes for mental health officials to see someone that, you know, the symptoms may be different by the time the actual professionals see them versus when they made the threat. There's a lot of areas of argument for lack of a better term that people could make about that. But the bottom line is, is that the school was given basically the sign off by mental health professionals that this person was no longer a threat. And this individual then proceeded, managed to graduate. And months later, we're at where we're at, at some point. And this is something that has also, you know, bothered me a little bit is that at some point, the responsibility of the school has to end. At some point this, this can't be the school's fault any longer, I would say. And so that's what initially drew my attention to the buffalo shooting in regards to the role with schools. I think one of the things it's not necessarily a solution, but I think in my mind going forward if this Red Flag Law is going to remain on the books for schools, and if it's really going to be an efficient tool than there has to be a school resource officer for each district in the state that can help follow through with shepherding this protective order through the system. Because that's a tremendous responsibility to put on a school district with everything else that they have to do. I know that there are some folks that struggle with the role of school resource officers. I've said this many times that I think school resource officers are an incredibly important asset to a district, especially when the partnership is right. And I've been fortunate, as I think I've said before, I've worked with four fantastic school resource officers over the years can't imagine doing the job without them to be honest. But I'll talk more about that a little bit later. In terms of some of the solutions going forward, in my mind that I think to some of the events, like we saw in Uvalde, which is going to be my less than graceful segue into those events, those events in Uvalde, were shocking, heartbreaking. Even as I'm sitting here, with the amount of time that's passed, it's still difficult to talk about one of these again, and considering the age of the victims, et cetera, the level of heartbreak is is just difficult to to express. Coupled with that, is the sense of frustration. And, frankly, anger, that 20 years after Columbine, we're still having these kinds of conversations. And 10 years after Sandy Hook, we're still having these conversations. So what I'm going to do is to try to give, in my humble opinion, what I think are some solutions that could help this bigger conversation, I'll use a framework that I heard on a different show to help frame this conversation a little bit. But before I do that, I wanted to give you a little bit of my background, and explain why I think I'm uniquely qualified to lead this conversation on this episode. So let me start by saying that every school leader plays a tremendous role in their school safety. I had been fortunate to be that was school safety was something that really became a primary part of my job when I was still an assistant principal at Fairport High School, helping develop safety plans for the building. And some of that planning also led to coordinating with law enforcement, including the Monroe County SWAT team for some drills, and exercises in our building and getting some tips from them that would make our building safer. And and in the case of the worst case scenario, how we could make the building a safer place and also a place that if the worst did happen, that they could quickly get to an active shooter and eliminate them. Also, in that time, one of the things that I found that, and I've said this, throughout my entire career is that if you have to implement your safety plan you've already lost, because there will be all kinds of questions after the event about what the school could have done better. The whole idea is to stop the event before a happens and the only way that you can do that is through a credible threat assessment model. And I was fortunate to play a part in bringing Dewey Cornell to the local BOCES to work with our group. They were mostly our our counselors and some of our other staff to develop threat assessment models in terms of young folks that may have been suicidal or homicidal and also in terms of working on the school environment, some tips that he had as well. And I took that that experience and continued to be Hold on that, in my next two districts continuing to work with law enforcement, with school resource officers with the chief of police, again, to make sure that our school was the safest that it could be. So the other piece that I think gives me a, hopefully, some credibility is the bulk of my teaching career, I taught public policy. And for a number of years, probably a decade or better, I taught public policy for Syracuse University class, to high school seniors, as well as what used to be classically known as civics or, or basically a politics class throughout the time that I taught. And so I know a little something about how policy is made the role of politics and interest groups, etc, in terms of this conversation. So I'll say at the outset, and even some of my statements that I made about the buffalo shooting in terms of a school resource officer in every district, some of these ideas and statements that I'm going to make are not going to be popular with certain segments of the community, I think there will be people that will not find them in line, maybe with their worldview, on both sides of the political spectrum. But I've always said that, as a building leader, you have to be a pragmatist, you have to do things that work. And I think that's something that has become broken in our political system is that we've lost that pragmatic, pragmatic streak in us. And I'll talk more about that, as I kind of bring the final solutions piece to the end. So I mentioned earlier, a framework that would guide this conversation, the show that I'm stealing this from, and I really would recommend it, if you are a public radio junkie, like I am, the show was called on the media, where they explore the role of media in our greater society, especially how it interacts with our political process, I would really recommend giving it a listen, some of their coverage on both shootings was fantastic. And they did a mini episode devoted just to the Uvalde case, it was fascinating. So if nothing else, listen to that one. But after the buffalo shooting, they devoted part of their episode to talking about media coverage, etc. That happened after shootings and lessons learned, etc. And they quoted, they had a segment of audio from Victor Blackwell, who's a CNN reporter. And he said that I'm going to paraphrase here that, you know, the debate after one of these events happens, breaks down into two camps. He said, Democrats will say this is all about guns. And Republicans will say this is all about mental health, you know, that kind of rattled around in my head? And I thought, yeah, he's correct. That is usually at the end of the day, when the dust settles, the lines that get drawn around this conversation. And so I said, I looked at that. And the reality is, is that there is places for improvement on both sides of that on the, on the gun side of it, and the mental health side of it. So I'm going to start with the mental health piece of it. And you've heard me say, a number of times on this podcast that the mental health system in the United States is broken, it's in desperate need of help. This is another symptom of that some of these cases that we're seeing here, and I'm going to give what I think is a little background about how we got here, and then what I would suggest to fix it. And, again, I think there will be some folks that will not agree with it. And that's okay, you know, these ideas that are being put out there, hopefully will spur to other conversations and other ideas, and maybe that will spur things getting done. So let's talk a little bit about the background of how we got here with the mental health system that we have. So if you turn the clock back to the early 1980s, there was something called the Mental Health Services Act. And what I'm going to give you is a more in depth version of something that I used to give my super my Syracuse University seniors and my Government seniors may 12 grade high school government seniors, which was a little lesson in bipartisanship, and good intentions that went sideways. So this is the longer version of that. And this is again, an example of where bipartisan cooperation that on the surface looked like it was, for a good cause. And that made both sides of the political spectrum happy, really had some, I think, some pretty tragic results long term that we still continue to grapple with. So the Mental Health Services Act in 1980, basically created a system that said, we're going to move away from outpatient or excuse me, from inpatient institutionalization of mental health patients to a more outpatient based system. And on the surface, that sounds fantastic. Folks on both sides of the aisle, liked this idea, because it was an idea that folks on the left like it because it took the stigma, some of the stigma off of mental illness, connected people more with their families, if they had them, people on the right liked it. Because what it could lead to is a trimming of budgets, the reduction, maybe even the closing of state run mental health institutions, because if we can do this all in an outpatient fashion, then we don't need these large, expensive mental health state run systems Well, after the Mental Health Services Act of 1980 was put into effect. So some of the initial funding for that was later cut. Now, when the funding was cut, it they they didn't revert back to the old system, they continued to keep the outpatient model in place, but without the full funding to help keep it moving forward. And so as a result, what you see is a number of folks with mental health problems that are not required to be hospitalized. Now, what does this mean in terms of some of the events that we've seen in the last few weeks? Well, as someone that has seen my fair share of mental health arrests over the years, students are returned rather quickly, at least back home and sometimes right back to school, within a day of being seen by a provider, given the current state of the emergency departments that deal with mental health, on a good night, it might be a 24 hour wait, it could be longer than that to be seen by someone if you're really evaluated to any great degree at all. And this is something that I think we would agree is not to the best interest of all parties. And when I say all parties, I'm not just talking about the child or the other per, you know, maybe not child but young adult or even older adult, for that matter, that may be in crisis, but also the greater community. Because if they are potentially someone that could cause trouble, we often you know, they are, they're put back into a situation where maybe there's no one that can help with medication, or there is no one that can help keep an eye on them to keep them safe, or those around them safe. And so I think it's important to look at this. And maybe it's time to reopen some of the state institutions and fund them. So that if someone does have a mental health crisis, that maybe the return doesn't happen within the first 24 hours, maybe there is a longer evaluation period before someone has returned. This would give mental health organizations a chance to interview people that dealt with the person in the midst of the crisis, because this is what often happen is that you would have a student say something concerning, I can think back to some some very extreme examples. Either that I was directly a part of or tangentially a part of because of the long wait by the time that the individual in question was interviewed by someone that had a mental health background, you know, on the on the outside of a school system. There's symptoms were not the same. And they were not presenting the same as they had when the crisis originated. And that student, as I said earlier, would often be sent back the next day, without any conversation from the school, part of the threat assessment model that we put in place. And at least two of the districts I was at was we created forms to send with our students that documented exactly what was said, our concern, so that we had a record to say, you may let you may decide that they're okay to return. But what we saw was that concerning and it was on paper, I think it would behoove all of us for the system to take a little bit more time and hang on to those folks. Even for evaluation, I'm not saying to lock them up and throw away the key forever. But holding someone so that there was a chance to get more information, and potentially put together a care plan for the long term care of that person, on an outpatient basis, would go a long way. There are parents that are desperate for help with their kids. But because the state institutions are no longer there as a backstop, they're in and out, it is something that could potentially help open up some avenues to get people help. The other thing I would add to this, and this would come in to the red flag laws is that if someone's held under these circumstances, their ability to own a gun is put on hold until they petition in order to show that they are okay. And considered mentally fit enough in order to do that, again. Again, it's not a lifetime ban, but you would have to petition because one of the things that came out of the buffalo tragedy was it was expressed to some of the mental health folks that he was he interviewed that he was, quote, just kidding, you will always try to get to the bottom of someone's mental state. And I've had students over the years that have done attention seeking behavior. And they were they were just looking for attention, this kind of consequence, where you're removing the ability for them to purchase a firearm, I think would be a small price to pay, in order to both get across the seriousness of this, and also potentially keep another tragedy like this from happening. Again, this year, we talked about the stigma of mental health. One of the things I struggle with is that in my new role, I teach first aid and CPR. And what has struck me and as I've taught the class now a couple of times since these tragedies have happened, and one of the items within the Red Cross training that we do is that there is consent given for first aid when someone is mentally impaired and can't make the decision for themselves. So for something as simple as mental impairment Will we allow, you know, their their person to be examined, if you will, given help, etcetera. But we don't go that far when there may be a fairly strong chance that there's something else going on? Because, you know, there's the change of a story, and we haven't had the time to get to the bottom of it to make sure. Again, I know that probably sounds fairly controversial to people. And some people would view that as an infringement on both folks with mental health rights and frankly students but I think if we're going to be serious about this, that there has to be some some teeth to what we do in a mental health standpoint, in order to again collectively make us all safer. So that's the mental health side of what I would propose. Now, before we talk about the gun side. Let me give you my bonafides when it comes to guns, much like I did with my take as a school safety person, I've been a gun owner my entire life. I took my hunter safety course at 14 and I was also a member For a few years of the NRA, and I'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute. And I grew up in a household where guns were used for sport of hunting or target practice, there was there was a great deal of what I called, I was thinking about this today, you know, old gun culture versus new gun culture. And what I mean by that is old gun culture was many of us own guns, it was part of what we did as a family in terms of hunting, etc. New gun culture, it appears that it's owning a gun for the sake of owning a gun. And this notion of, of self protection, first and foremost, and I think that's a problematic way to view gun ownership. Not that self protection doesn't play a role in gun ownership. I'm not saying now. But I think when that becomes kind of the sole purpose, or owning a gun for ownership sake, that's problematic as well. So let me let me get into where I think, you know, some things might have gone wrong in terms of again, old old gun culture versus new gun culture. Often, what we hear when it comes to any kind of looking at the Second Amendment or guns, gun rights with the NRA will often say is that if we are more people, if we have more good guys with guns in their hands than bad guys with guns in their hands, that will make us safer? Well, I guess, if I, if you take that to its extreme, to me that resembles a failed state. Because that sounds like we've given up on the rule of law. To me that sounds like Mogadishu in the early 90s. Somalia, if you've either read the book or seen the movie, Black Hawk Down, Somalia was and probably arguably still is a failed state where warlords control certain segments of town cities to country, I would say we are a long, long way from a failed state and to decide that that's how we should be arming ourselves, you know, might create this false sense that we already are. And I would say we're not. So I think what we need are gun laws that are more national in scope. The reason I say that is many people, when again, the issue of more regulation for guns come up, you will hear people say, well, the criminals will still get them. Yes, criminals may still get guns. But that doesn't mean that we don't make it harder for them. And if our gun laws have a more national approach to them, it makes it harder for criminals to bring guns across state lines many times and the 111 example I think from a law enforcement standpoint, it's done well as project exile. In terms of cracking down on illegal guns. That's something that's been fairly successful in the Rochester area. But you know, it shouldn't be difficult to get a gun. We don't, we don't make it easy to get heroin or fentanyl, the same argument should hold true. With guns, it should be. It shouldn't be easy to get a gun when there's the focus on the Second Amendment. There's a lot of focus on the second half. The idea of the right to own a gun shall not be infringed. But people conveniently leave out that first part which talks about a well regulated militia. It's a two part amendment, and I think some of that well regulated could go a long way. We're a nation of 330 million and having more regulation on guns is by the way, that is not something that is new to this country in the 20s and 30s. There were gun regulations that eliminated automatic weapons, also known as the tommy gun that gangsters were using during the bootlegging wars of prohibition. I think it makes sense to look at what types of guns are needed for people to be sportsmen. I remember when I moved into parenting, one of the first signs I saw was a no firing of firearms within the town limits and I found that different because we're I had grown up As a kid, it was no big deal to go literally in the backyard and shoot. But then I quickly realized after living in parents and for about five minutes, that my old backyard my nearest neighbor behind me, was about a mile and a half away. Versus in Parrington, sometimes at most, they were only 100 yards away, behind me. So understanding that as we change and evolve as a country, that having stronger gun regulations is are not the end of the world. And I think that's an important piece to this as well, whether it's closing some of the other loopholes that exist in terms of gun sales, the ghost gun, piece of this, all of that is really something that as a nation, we need to come to grips with, because having access to large clips, that is not, you know, there's not a sportsman around that needs 50 rounds to take down a deer. In fact, I was taught in my hunter safety class, that your first shot should bring that animal down. But that's a topic for another story. Now, having said that, about old gun culture versus new gun culture, I'm going to talk about culture in general, because one of the things that has changed is that as a as a kid, and even in my first job in Hanoi, not well, 30 years ago, now, it was not uncommon to have students roll into school with a shotgun rack with a shotgun in the rack, it was fairly common during hunting season, and was not given a second look, the fact that that is no longer the case, it shows a sign of the times. And again, I think that move from old gun culture to new gun culture. But I think it's also a sign of in the broader sense, the greater toxicity that exists in our culture. And there's a couple things that I think would help in combating school shooters or mass shooters directly, also something that maybe as a nation, we need to come to grips with as well. One thing that I think would be a big help would be from social media companies, there are all kinds of algorithms at work, that will keep feeding you in your algorithm, or in your news stories feeds that they think you should see. Or advertisements that they think that would fit, what you've shopped for before, et cetera. I find it hard to believe that there's not an algorithm that wouldn't have caught some of the things that some of these mass shooters have been posting, and flagging Nat and sending that to the proper authorities. And by the way, this is going to be another one of those things, it's going to sound fairly controversial. But maybe it's time that is part of those user agreements that none of us read before we sign up for these sites that are in those user agreements. There's a statement that says something to the effect of if you post something along the lines that may be viewed as a threat to others that that will be passed on to law enforcement. It is a private companies site. With that comes some limits on what you can say on it. And I think that is something especially when it comes to some of these threats to mass shootings and other threats of violence. That would go a long way. Along with that. I think it would also be helpful if it was a lot easier, especially for school districts working with law enforcement, to get access to social media companies, records when it comes to threats of violence, et cetera, when we're trying to do investigations, etc. So beyond social media, I would also say that another group that could help with some of the mass shootings, is our regular mainstream media, the news coverage, and I think they could take a page from the Canadian news organizations that when they have had the few mass shootings that they've had, one of the things that is a big part of their coverage is they do not share the shooters name or likeness, to give any more fame or celebrity to that shooter. They become an anonymous assailant, anonymous shooter, what have you this is something had a number of media experts and other psychologists have said that this would be an important piece in keeping copycat phenomenon down and also stop this hero worshipping of some of these shooters, because many times the writings that come out after one of these tragedies, they will mention that the shooters will mention that they are trying to either emulate something from another shooters past or try to outdo another shooter. It's pretty disturbing stuff. But an easy fix to that is by making them more anonymous. And the final piece that I would say, and this goes to the broader culture, is that we need as a nation to figure out a way. And I don't have the answer for this, I don't have a clear policy, as I did with some of the other things that I suggested here. But we have to find a way we have to remember what it was like as a country, when compromise was possible. When the other side of whatever political argument we're talking about, was not evil or wrong, because they took a side that we disagreed with. A democracy lives and breathes on compromise. And working together, we can no longer have this ongoing attempt to eliminate the other side, to say that their point of view was all wrong. It's something that we as a nation have to figure out how to get to the to get back to this idea of compromise and working together. And that civility, that modeling of that becomes important because there isn't much of it anymore. It's very hard to find the people that you expect to be quote, grownups don't always act that way when they're in front of the cameras trying to rally their base. And as a nation, we need grownups again, as a nation, some of us sometimes need to hear know that that is not okay. to certain behaviors are not acceptable. So, I've always had a tremendous belief and hope for this country. I continue to have that. And that is what I will leave you with, from this episode of education matters, New York, looking forward to the second season here in a few weeks. Thank you again for listening. And if you have comments, either about this show, or ideas for future shows or people that you'd like to hear from, please check out the website, education matters, new york.com and there's a place to leave those comments. Have a great rest of the day and the week and I'll be talking with you again in a couple of weeks. Take care