'Tis the Season (Part 11?)

Today's story comes to us from Longmont, Colorado. Once again, MySpace plays a part.

LONGMONT — Skyline High School principal Tom Stumpf and other administrators will meet this morning to discuss how to respond to continuing rumors of a possible Columbine-style attack at the school May 5.

A blog posting on the Web site MySpace.com prompted a student in the St. Vrain Valley School District’s Open Door program to file a police report detailing the possible attack.

According to the police report, a friend of the student, who attends Skyline, posted a blog saying that a “Columbine, so-called shooting” was going to take place there.

Information about the posting was sent to Skyline High school resource officer Craig Mansanares.

“So, for all you people that go to Skyline, please save your lives and don’t go to school on May 5th aka Cinco de Mayo. I already know that I’m not! Repost this if you wanna keep your life safe and anyone else’s lives safe!” the blog stated, according to the police report.

So what makes this part eleven? Well. . .

WICHITA, Kan. - In the two months leading to the Columbine school shooting anniversary, students have threatened violence in 10 schools across the nation, with many of those beleaguered schools sharing some common underlying factors, a safety expert said Tuesday.

The list of places where students were arrested recently after allegedly threatening attacks at their schools reads like a cross-section of small-town America: Puyallup, Wash., on April 24; North Pole, Alaska, on April 22; Riverton, Kan., on April 20; Platte City, Mo., on April 17; Pierce County, Wash., on April 7; Atco, N.J., on April 5; Foley, Ala., on March 24; Rochester Hills, Mich., on March 20; Greenwood, Ind., on March 2; and Muscatine, Iowa, on March 1.

The article goes on to mention budget cutbacks affecting student support personnel, bullying, and the stresses of testing as being relevant to this spate of threats. It calls attention to the role played by the internet in halting these would-be tragedies.

The Internet is a recurring theme in the recent spat of foiled school plots. Tom Nolan, a Boston University professor of criminal justice and a former police officer, said much of the violence is fueled by the connections children are making on the Internet, where they can interact with like-minded students around the world.

"The Internet is there for endorsement, support and certainly collaboration among kids who may be possessed of the same kind of inclinations," Nolan said. "That ability to communicate across a broad spectrum of similarly disturbed kids didn't exist a generation ago."

In Kansas, Riverton High School officials learned that a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com. In Mississippi, two Pearl Junior High School students allegedly made threatening statements on the teen site Xanga. The student charged in the alleged plot at Puyallup, Wash., sent an instant message to a fellow student.