Ohio man charged in school terror drill threat

[Bill Mattocks]

Interesting story...

A school decides to have an emergency training drill that specifies a gunman in the school who is incensed over 'illegal immigration'. Apparently, many objected to this scenario.

But one person decided to suit action to words and left a threat on the school's voicemail, threatening to make their drill a reality.

http://www.esthervilledailynews.com...hool-terror-drill-threat.html?isap=1&nav=5012

DES MOINES — Authorities have accused an Ohio man of threatening terrorism by leaving an expletive-laden message on an Iowa high school’s answering machine to force the cancellation of an emergency training drill, authorities said Friday.
Robin Elston, 47, of Columbus, was charged with one count of threatening terrorism and one count of making threats, Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker said.
The proposed March 26 drill involving police, firefighters and other first responders was designed to feature an enraged teen shooter who was venting his anger over illegal immigration. The exercise drew criticism from groups opposed to illegal immigration who said the fictitious emergency scenario had a political agenda because it featured a teenage white supremacist gunman.
“If you are smart, I wouldn’t go to work tomorrow, or today. Cause maybe your little training exercise might come into reality,” the caller said in the message to Treynor High School in Treynor in southwest Iowa.

Besides the human drama, I found this part interesting:

Exercise director Doug Reed had said the county incorporated the immigration issue into the training scenario to secure Department of Homeland Security funding. To qualify, Reed said, the exercise needed to be about terrorism.

That's an interesting side-note to all of this - one might ask why a terrorism scenario was necessary to get funding; why funding was an issue in a public safety exercise at all - even why the scenario could not have been about an Islamic terrorist running amok in the school? The whole thing is rather ripe for discussion from both sides of the issues of the day.

One last thing also caught my attention, and it ties into something I am becoming more and more concerned about:

Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research with the Anti-Defamation League, said he was not familiar with Elston.
“It seemed to be a reaction to news of this incident getting out in the blogosphere,” Pitcavage said. “There are far more people out there who can be disgruntled or who can work themselves up over something that they read than there are full-fledge extremists.”

As we see in a number of posts in the Study on MT and other discussion forums, there are some people who appear to get all their reading material from various blogs, which they then feel compelled to become outraged about and to post willy-nilly on MT and other places, and who cannot be convinced that the take (often erroneous) of the original author of the blog piece could possibly be either mistaken, or (as seems to be the case more than often) an outright lie and based on shaded words and half-truths.

As I mentioned before, it's called 'rabble rousing'. In some historic settings, it's been a force for good - also a force for evil. When it motivates angry people without much sense to take violent action against school children - or threaten to - I'd call that evil.

 

[MA-Caver]

A "teenage white supremacist" ... in their efforts to avoid stereotypical political incorrectness they came up with the most stereotypical violent individual of all. Of course it couldn't have been an adult arabic or mexican male who was upset about illegal immigration that might offend. I keep shaking my head at how carefully people continue to tap-dance in the minefield (or I should say mindfield).


Why not about terrorism? Isn't that what the Homeland Security is supposed to be about?? Isn't that why it was created?? Isn't that BETTER be the ONLY reason that The Department of Homeland Security was created?

We've been conditioned by our own media to sensationalism. Who'd want to read some humdrum blog or news story? Who'd want to read about how one walked to the corner store for some ice-cream and stopped to pet this really cute kitten before continuing on? So yeah, sure folks are going to post the "really cool/awesome" or "really awful/terrible" things going on out there in the world.

As I mentioned before, it's called 'rabble rousing'. In some historic settings, it's been a force for good - also a force for evil. When it motivates angry people without much sense to take violent action against school children - or threaten to - I'd call that evil.

Agreed, which is what I meant by the "tap-dancing in the mindfield". Trying to be extra special careful not to piss anyone off.

Question I have is why announce beforehand the drill? When we had drills of this sort when I went to school... we weren't notified. Not I or my parents. We sat in class trying not to fall asleep or get caught passing a note or whatever and then the building wide alarm goes off and the teacher (who WAS notified earlier) calmly directs us to the exits in an orderly fashion. Of course 99% of the time the drills were for fires not some nutjob (or two) walking around shooting/killing people in anger.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

A "teenage white supremacist" ... in their efforts to avoid stereotypical political incorrectness they came up with the most stereotypical violent individual of all. Of course it couldn't have been an adult arabic or mexican male who was upset about illegal immigration that might offend. I keep shaking my head at how carefully people continue to tap-dance in the minefield (or I should say mindfield).

Agreed.

Why not about terrorism? Isn't that what the Homeland Security is supposed to be about?? Isn't that why it was created?? Isn't that BETTER be the ONLY reason that The Department of Homeland Security was created?

I was against the creation of the DHS from the beginning; even before it existed. I read the recommendation in the Rand report months before 9/11 and saw this coming - not the attack, but the reaction. That part was 100% planned in advance.

We've been conditioned by our own media to sensationalism. Who'd want to read some humdrum blog or news story? Who'd want to read about how one walked to the corner store for some ice-cream and stopped to pet this really cute kitten before continuing on? So yeah, sure folks are going to post the "really cool/awesome" or "really awful/terrible" things going on out there in the world.

Correct. I read a lot of news stories - I have a lot of active agents that search for me. Perhaps you were unaware that there is a huge spate of people mailing envelopes containing powdery white substances going on right now? Nearly every day - seriously. All hoaxes, of course; but happening. Lots of angry people. Also - pipe bombs in mail boxes. Nearly daily. Whoops, here's another one - churches being set on fire. Not historically-black churches though, or Mosques or Synagogues. Just not news. Yet they're being set on fire left and right.

Agreed, which is what I meant by the "tap-dancing in the mindfield". Trying to be extra special careful not to piss anyone off.

Best laid plans and all that. Yes.

Question I have is why announce beforehand the drill? When we had drills of this sort when I went to school... we weren't notified. Not I or my parents. We sat in class trying not to fall asleep or get caught passing a note or whatever and then the building wide alarm goes off and the teacher (who WAS notified earlier) calmly directs us to the exits in an orderly fashion. Of course 99% of the time the drills were for fires not some nutjob (or two) walking around shooting/killing people in anger.

It would appear that there was something to be gained by so doing, or at least the officials in charge thought that might be the case. Dunno!

 

[Archangel M]

...the original author of the blog piece could possibly be either mistaken, or (as seems to be the case more than often) an outright lie and based on shaded words and half-truths.

Before the age of the internet we used to call them "reporters".

 

[granfire]

Before the age of the internet we used to call them "reporters".

LOL, columnists, maybe....

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Before the age of the internet we used to call them "reporters".

No, not even close. They more closely resemble commentators. They offer opinion, not objective reporting of fact; and generally they are meta-reporters if you must use the term at all; they report on what has been reported by others. They do not go out and gather information, they do not directly (in most cases) interview subjects, they do not submit their work to either vetting, review, or editing.

One can complain about the lack of objective reporting standards amongst the traditional press, and I'd be the first to agree. However, they are at least purportedly held to standards of objectivity; when egregious failures to do so have been discovered, there have been notorious firings of reporters and photographers who have failed to maintain the supposed standards. Bloggers are generally (and to the best of my knowledge, always) subject to no such standard.

A blogger is not a reporter. It may be citizen journalism, and in fact, I have no issue with citizens writing about their feelings, observations, opinions, and so on - I do it here quite a bit when I post a link to a news piece and then comment upon it. But what I'm doing isn't reporting - neither is what most bloggers do.

 

[Archangel M]

LOL, columnists, maybe....

Today they are called "letters from the editor". Some of the editorials are so blatantly slanted (in either direction depending on the paper) in our press how can you deny that the entire paper and all its reporters are not "shading" stories??

If you think that reporters are not just more experienced in hiding their politics in their work than bloggers are I have some bridges up for sale.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Today they are called Editors. Some of the editorials are so blatantly slanted (in either direction depending on the paper) how can you deny that the entire paper and all its reporters are not "shading" stories??

Who denies it?

Editorials are opinions and have never purported to be straight news. Of course they are slanted; that's what Editorial and Op-Ed pieces are. Columnists write editorials, full of their own opinion. Again, they are not reporting and do not pretend to be objective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-ed

But even reporting is often slanted these days, to one direction or the other.

That still does not make a blogger a reporter. They are different in fundamental ways. Basically, a blogger is accountable to no one for being truthful, for making it clear that he or she is stating opinion and not fact, and generally do not do original reporting, cite sources, or subject themselves to editing or oversight. Reporters do.

 

[granfire]

Today they are called "letters from the editor". Some of the editorials are so blatantly slanted (in either direction depending on the paper) in our press how can you deny that the entire paper and all its reporters are not "shading" stories??

If you think that reporters are not just more experienced in hiding their politics in their work than bloggers are I have some bridges up for sale.

As Bill said, Editorials are, by nature, slanted.
Articles shouldn't be.

Recommended reading : The Essence of Journalism. I forgot the author but the title should get you a lead. And if you never knew why some 'news' rubs you the wrong way, reading that will make it very clear.

 

[punisher73]

Question I have is why announce beforehand the drill? When we had drills of this sort when I went to school... we weren't notified. Not I or my parents. We sat in class trying not to fall asleep or get caught passing a note or whatever and then the building wide alarm goes off and the teacher (who WAS notified earlier) calmly directs us to the exits in an orderly fashion. Of course 99% of the time the drills were for fires not some nutjob (or two) walking around shooting/killing people in anger.

The panic factor.

I was part of a multi-agency drill that incorporated different police agencies, fire and medical. It was a school shooter scenario and we put the school on lockdown and the played it out, then fire and medical practiced their part on triaging the "injured students" and then taking them to a local hospital to be "treated".

Now imagine if they had NOT announced ahead of time what was going on in the age of cell phones. Frantic student calls home and starts talking about seeing police running through the halls and then EMT's wheeling students out. What do you think is going to happen when the school then tells everyone, not to worry it was just a drill.

I have to run the drills at one of our local schools and for fire/severe weather we just do them, but for lockdown drills we announce that it is a drill to not panic the students.