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A school shooting that was stopped at the last moment in the Chicago suburbs is now being treated by prosecutors as an attempted mass murder. I wrote about this previously after it happened on May 22, when authorities in Plainfield Township responded to a call about a suicidal juvenile armed with a gun. By the time deputies arrived at the home, a family member had already tackled the 15-year-old…

There’s still not a whole lot of information available about the shooting that erupted after a high school graduation ceremony in Fairfield, California, last night. What is known so far paints a grim picture of what should have been a day of celebration. The shooting happened following a graduation ceremony for Sem Yeto High School, a continuation school that shares a campus with Fairfield High…

Previously in my ‘civilian’ life, I spent years writing about scams on a daily basis. One of the most common scams I came across was the police impersonation scam. The details would change from case to case, but the basic formula was always the same. A scammer would pretend to be someone in law enforcement and use scare tactics to separate victims from their money. One of the most notorious…

Colorado is trying to confront the reality that no community is immune from the threat of a school shooting. But again, they’re going about it the wrong way. A recent report from Colorado news station KOAA highlighted a training program in La Junta where rural law enforcement officers and school resource officers participated in active shooter response exercises conducted by FASTER Colorado. The…

The FBI recently arrested Katherine Joiner of Alabama and Ethan Bassett of Mississippi after they uncovered Instagram messages that allegedly detailed plans for a school shooting. According to court documents, the pair exchanged messages discussing violence, suicide, potential targets, guns, and meeting up to carry out a school shooting. Both now face federal charges for transmitting threatening…

Another cop is facing serious criminal charges after investigators say he spent weeks sending sexually explicit messages to people he believed were kids. 34-year-old Chadd Muellner is a deputy with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota. He was arrested and charged with two felony counts of engaging in electronic communication relating to sexual conduct with a child. Investigators say…

For months, it looked like the infamous Minneapolis snow shovel ‘ambush’ was going to follow the same script we’ve seen before. Back in January, during Operation Metro Surge, the Department of Homeland Security immediately rolled out a dramatic story about a federal agent fighting for his life. According to the original account, ICE agent Christian Castro was attacked by Julio Sosa-Celis and…

For years, I’ve argued that putting more armed officers in schools is not the magic solution many people think it is. After school shootings, especially high-profile ones, politicians inevitably start calling for more school resource officers, more security, and more police presence. The idea sounds simple enough. If there are more cops in schools, surely schools will be safer. The problem is…

Georgia is now the latest state spending more than half a million taxpayer dollars on anti-school shooter drones for public schools, because apparently that’s where school safety policy is headed now. The state budget included $550,000 for a pilot program from a company called Campus Guardian Angel that will potentially place remotely operated drones inside five Georgia high schools. Meanwhile,…

It must be a slow news day, which is honestly a good thing considering the kind of stories I usually write about. With many schools getting ready to let out for the summer, maybe we’ll finally get a little respite from the nonstop parade of school shooting stories. Then again, Kik and I.C.E. will probably keep us busy enough over the next few months. Still, one case out of Washington State…

On May 15th, 36-year-old Dustin Rudd of Ridgeland, Wisconsin, allegedly armed himself with a loaded .30-06 rifle, attached an American flag to a pole, livestreamed his actions online, and walked toward Prairie Farm School while threatening to murder children. Investigators say he talked about shooting as many kids as he could before taking hostages and eventually killing himself in what he…

In my previous post about the Islamic Center of San Diego shooting, I talked about how this case seemed different from the usual school shooter story. Early reporting made it sound like Caleb Vazquez’s parents recognized there was a serious problem and were doing everything they could to stop their son from spiraling further into violent extremism. Court documents suggested they removed guns…

A Florida man named Otoniel Carlos O’Valle, aka Oto, was arrested after allegedly pulling a gun on a substitute school bus driver. Apparently some people have decided that basic adult communication is just too complicated. According to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, the incident happened at a school bus stop after O’Valle approached the driver, pulled a handgun from his waistband, and asked…

A school shooting at an elementary school in Illinois may have been stopped at the last possible second on Friday, and once again the difference between another national tragedy and a quiet local news story appears to have come down to sheer luck and one person acting fast. According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called to a home in Plainfield Township shortly before 1 p.m.…

No two school shootings are ever the same, and new details that have come out about the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego make that evident. Instead of a story where “nobody saw the warning signs,” this is what happens when even intervention isn’t enough. By now, most people know the basics of the shooting. 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez opened fire at the Islamic…

On December 16, 2024, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow walked into Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, with two handguns and opened fire during a study hall full of students from multiple grades. By the time it was over, teacher Erin Michelle West and freshman Rubi Vergara were dead, six other people were wounded, and Natalie had killed herself. Authorities later said she fired at…

The deadly January 2025 shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville was exactly the kind of tragedy companies like Omnilert claim they exist to stop. Seventeen-year-old Solomon Henderson opened fire in the school cafeteria, killing 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante and injuring other students before taking his own life. At the time of the shooting, Antioch High already had Omnilert’s…