I want to start by saying that I am thankful that many of the readers of this site already understand the reality of Operation Mockingbird thereby enabling me to skip the preliminaries and get right to the matter at hand.
I am seeing a lot of headlines starting to crop up concerning students and firearms- subjects that rarely showed up paired together over the recent few years.
Earlier this month, I reported on two incidences within the state of Florida that occurred within a two-week time span both involving middle school students. One threatened a shooting, the other actually brought a firearm to school.
But it's not just students making empty threats.
A 9-year-old elementary school student is accused of calling in a false report of shots fired within Latrobe Elementary School which resulted in a district wide lockdown of schools for approximately an hour on February 24.
"We were able to positively identify the juvenile who made the call, but, unfortunately at this point, I can't say much more about it because it's still an ongoing, sensitive investigation," Chief John Sealsman was quoted as saying by Trib Live. The child was identified about two hours after the call had been placed.
In Shawnee, Kansas, a high school student was found at the Shawnee Mission Northwest High School to have a handgun and other "contraband" items in their backpack on Thursday, February 25.
The discovery of the handgun came as a part of an administrative investigation into the student. The investigation was sparked by an unspecified and unrelated matter.
"There is no evidence that the student had any intention of using the weapon here at Northwest," Principal Lisa Gruman said in a message sent to the families of the students. "I do want to assure you that we are doing everything in our power to maintain Northwest as a safe learning environment."
Leading into the weekend, Not The Bee, the sister sister site to the satire site Babylon Bee that actually reports news ran an interesting article.
A father and son team out of Mississippi have engineered a reportedly bullet resistant desk under the name of "Defender Safe Space Desk" as an answer to the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida which killed 17 and wounded 17 more.
"Ballistic materials are like a net, it's like a catchall of a bullet," Todd Drummond, a 20-year veteran of law enforcement and the father of Donald explained to WLOX. "It is designed to withstand the impact similar to like a bowling ball hitting it at 55 miles an hour."
While reporting that the price per desk is $1,800, the father and son team are working through their charity, "Defend Our Children" to be able to provide desks free of charge to schools that wish to utilize them but cannot afford them.
Then this morning there was a report of a school shooting at Watson Chapel Junior High School in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
The shooting left one 15-year-old student in "very serious condition" and left investigators searching for answers. He was airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock for further treatment.
They soon determined that the shooting was targeted and isolated, but the motive remained unclear. A 15-year-old suspect is in custody at the Jack Jones Juvenile Justice Center where formal charges will be filed once the determination is made whether he will be charged as a juvenile or as an adult.
Later in the afternoon, what is being identified as a false report began to circulate stating that the 15-year-old victim had succumbed to his injuries. Officers have said "bad information was released" and clarified stating that the victim is listed as being in "serious" condition at the Children's Hospital.
This shooting took place on the first day that students had returned to school for in-person instruction.