Thankfully, Stupidity is not a Defense in Court – Former Teacher is Shocked after Being Arrested when he Notified Police that he Raped Two Girls Decades ago

August 1, 2012 by

According to St. Louis prosecutor Bob McCulloch , 67-year-old Donald Ingerson mistakenly thought that he could call the police and tell them in detail how he raped two girls many years ago without being prosecuted due to the statute of limitations.   He was shocked to learn that the statute of limitations would not protect him in this case when he was arrested for his crimes.  Ingerson, who is a retired school teacher from Missouri, now lives in Minnesota and is in jail with a $300,000 bond.

Many people make incorrect presumptions about laws relating to statutory limitations for prosecutions of criminal acts.  For example, in some states, the statutory time limits do not begin to apply until and unless criminal justice officials know who committed a crime and have the ability to locate the suspect.  In this instance, the statutory limitation only becomes active 30 years after the victim becomes an adult.

Fortunately, stupidity is not a defense in a court of law.

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School Officials, Law Enforcement Officers and Mental Health Professionals have Averted Many Planned Acts of Aggression at our Nation’s Schools

August 1, 2012 by

The arrest of a California college professor who apparently had been formulating detailed plans to carry out a deadly attack at University High School in Irvine, California is possibly one example of this type of intervention.  Police arrested Rainer Reinscheid after he was observed by police setting a fire on school property.  The police had stepped up patrols after a series of fires on school property and at an administrator’s residence.

Reinscheid was apparently distraught after his 14-year-old son who was a student at the school committed suicide in March.  When police checked messages on Reinscheid’s cell phone, they found detailed emails outlining how the man intended to use firearms to murder specific administrators at the school, kill and sexually assault students and burn down the school.

There have been many instances where students and non-students who had planned attacks on American schools have been caught before they could carry out their attacks.  The Bibb County Public School System in Macon, Georgia has averted six planned school shootings, one planned school bombing and a planned double suicide using three techniques that  have since become widespread in the United States, Canada and other countries – visual weapons screening, home searches and multidisciplinary threat assessment.

While the media tends to focus on incidents that take place, they often do not learn of heavily report instances where tragedy is averted through proactive measures.  This should not surprise us as the American media delivers what the public prompts it to do.  As business enterprises, media outlets respond to the measurement of ratings and deliver news in ways that are calculated to draw readers and viewers.  As a consequence, important information about how we can better protect schools is often not given as much exposure as upsetting and tragic information.

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SHARK! – Do our School Safety Efforts match our Real Risks?

July 31, 2012 by

Shark attacks in the U.S. and Australia have been in the headlines a bit lately.  And while no one wants to be bitten by a shark, the data on shark attacks in the U.S. indicates that shark attacks are exceedingly rare but often terrifying events. 

But in contrast to other animals which cause the deaths of far more Americans, shark attacks due tend to garner much greater media coverage.  For example, on Wikipedia indicates that while most people are more afraid of bears than deer, only two or three people a year are killed in the U.S. annually while more than 30 are typically killed by dogs and more about 150 are killed in collisions with deer.  According to U.S. News and World Report, the figures are even more out of kilter with our perceptions of fear with only ten fatalities from shark attacks in America in the past ten years, 28 fatal bear attacks but 1,017 people killed in collisions with deer from 2005 through 2009, a much shorter time frame.

We see the same effect in school safety where people are focused on the incidents that garner the most upsetting news coverage over things that result in more student deaths each year such as allergic reactions to peanut butter, heart stoppage and other causes.  

For example, searches of the internet will reveal dozens of video segments on how to attack an active shooter.  These videos often focus exclusively on active shooter scenarios, sometimes feature unproven concepts and often contain content that could result in death if they are misapplied to other far more common weapons situations such as a person who is brandishing a firearm but has not opened fire yet.    

While these efforts are well intended, some experts have questioned their effectiveness and are concerned that they are creating a deadly form of tunnel vision in campus emergency preparedness.   I share some of these concerns and will be detailing them in a soon to be released white paper on teaching active resistance for active shooter situations co-authored with Steve Satterly.   School safety efforts should be balanced and cover the things that cause death and serious injury most often as well as those that result in the most voluminous and graphic media coverage.

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