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The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload.
And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's gonna make them stay at home.
Daddy doesn't understand it
He always said she was good as gold.
And he can see no reasons
‘Cause there are no reasons.
What reason do you need to be shown? –
“I Don’t Like Mondays,”
Boomtown Rats, 1979
In January 1979, Brenda Spencer cut classes from her San Diego high
school to kill a little boredom at home. Insufficiently amused by drugs and
alcohol, the 16-year-old dusted off a .22-caliber rifle and beaded in on a few
targets across the street.
On the other side was Grover Cleveland Elementary School. By the
time Spencer surrendered, the school’s principal and custodian were dead; a
police officer and eight children lie wounded.
Things have changed since what is believed to be the nation’s first
high profile school shooting. We are still shocked, but no longer surprised.
Many schools have anti-violence programs, even “disaster drills,” to prepare.
But like today the nation in 1979 ached to know why.
Spencer’s explanation: “I just don’t like Mondays.” The song that reply
inspired stirred almost as much rage as the shooting itself. Many felt it
trivialized Spencer’s act, if not glorified her, despite the band’s protest that
it was meant as satire.
I don’t know about that, but I do find it ironic that two days after Spencer’s
parole hearing last month a crowd gathered at a different courthouse to support
another alleged San Diego area school shooter. Prosecutors intend to try
15-year-old Andy Williams as an adult on 28 felony charges, including two counts
of murder, for shootings at Santana High School in nearby Santee. The
protestors were led by a Massachusetts real estate investor whose motives remain
fuzzy.
According to news reports and web sites sponsored by Williams’ supporters, the
demonstrators oppose California’s Proposition 21, which requires the prosecution
of minors as adults for certain crimes. Also cited is sympathy over Williams’
history of being bullied, reportedly consisting of taunts over his small size
and big ears, and having his skateboard stolen.
The notion that teenagers are unknowing babes
who cannot be held fully accountable for their acts is relatively new in America
and not the norm in most cultures. It is an unfortunate outgrowth of affluence,
the luxury of an extended infancy. This is bad enough, but to propose even
partial absolution for premeditated murder in these cases suggests cause for a
collective societal insanity plea.
Almost as galling is that sporting big ears and having your
skateboard stolen passes for reason to “switch to overload” to some folks.
Before you accuse me of insensitivity, I have written of my own grief at the
hands of school bullies and have yet to hear anything about Williams’s case that
sounds worse than garden-variety schoolyard harassment. Even if I’ve missed
something, the kids murdered at Santana had nothing to do with his
mistreatment. While several school killers have made hit lists of tormentors, I
am unaware that any have actually been shot.
If we truly believe that 15-year-olds don’t know it’s horribly wrong
to kill someone, I suggest we recall their driver’s permits at the earliest
possible convenience. Yet empathy for child murderers is not entirely new –
despite the outrage, “I Don’t Like Mondays” reached number one on the pop charts
in 1979.
The best we can do for school killers (after incarcerating them) is
prayer and help in coming to terms with the monstrousness of their acts.
Neither they nor society are served by shielding them from full responsibility
for knowingly planned and carefully executed atrocities.
© 1997- 2002 Brent Morrison
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