pp19dd
commented
5 years ago The dataset doesn't have that information. You'll need to do some legwork to draw your own conclusions, but I think overall it's just too few entries to generalize from. Search "school shooting" school name year and hit the news tab.
Nonstudent: the accidental discharge one is almost certainly statistically expected. The gun went off in an empty room, bullet went through a wall and a teacher was hit in the "neck area" but "without breaking her skin." Michigan officer had 20+ years of experience. NYPD estimated the semiautomatic accidental discharge rate in their force at 14 / 1,000 (see https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/145560NCJRS.pdf).
Nonstudent: In one case, an older trespasser apparently refused to drop a handgun and was shot.
According to local reporting, one student flashed photos of guns and money somewhere on social media and was reported to the authorities. Later, an officer tried to intercept him and he fled. The officer shot at the moving vehicle five times. During a short police chase, the student discarded his gun and then later crashed his car.
Most other incidents involving students can be reasonably described as defensive shootings, albeit with reporting typically scant on the attackers' motives and investigation findings. According to reporting, one officer was attacked with a knife, another one with a bayonet, another one with a baseball bat. One officer was attacked by a group of students and shot one. Two separate students brought pellet guns at their respective schools and allegedly refused to drop them when confronted.
The one incident that doesn't seem to exactly belong to that set was a married "security guard" described as a resource officer in the database. He'd allegedly been in an inappropriate relationship with a minor for several years and lashed back at her attempt to break up with him, shooting her several times. She survived. I couldn't find local news reporting that confirmed whether he worked at the school, so maybe that entry needs a correction.
I'm trying to get a sense of the impact/effect of resource officers and police in schools, particularly in terms of violence against students.
I see that ~5% of cases are officer-involved shootings on school grounds, but is there a way to get a sense of the circumstances of these shootings?
They are mostly listed as targeted (one accidental) so should we be inferring that officers are deliberately shooting at students? How can we get a sense of the justifiability, if such a thing is possible, of opening fire on students in school versus cases of officers shooting students/teachers for other reasons?