Deadly Lessons Understanding Lethal School Violence (2003) / Chapter Skim
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3. Bad Things Happen in Good Communities: The Rampage Shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, and Its Aftermath
3. Bad Things Happen in Good Communities: The Rampage Shooting in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, and Its Aftermath
Pages 70-100
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From page 70... ...
The occasion is the end-of-the-year dinner dance for the graduating eighth grade class at Parker Middle School in Washington Township, just north of Edinboro, Pennsylvania. Andrew sits awkwardly at a banquet table, dressed in a dark blue sports coat, white shirt, and blue and tan tie.
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From page 71... ...
We also explore the aftermath of the shooting, focusing in particular on how people have come to explain the event and what they appear to have learned from it. Our report is based on extensive interviews we conducted during a site visit to the Edinboro area during June 2001, which involved individual and group sessions with 32 students, teachers, school administrators, community residents, town officials, police investigators, lawyers, court officials, and journalists.
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From page 72... ...
We also reviewed media reports, but after discovering several inaccuracies in those accounts, we relied on other sources for basic facts about the case. To provide background on Edinboro and the General McLane School District, we consulted a mix of census data, town records, school and police reports, and town-related web sites.
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From page 73... ...
"Shut up," he yelled, "or someone else is going to die." He fired two more times, grazing a second teacher, Edrye May Boraten, 51, and wounding a classmate, Jacob Tury, in the back. Andrew's eyes locked onto Justin Fletcher, one of the toughest boys in the eighth grade, who stood defiantly and stared at him.
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From page 74... ...
As she frantically looked for Andrew, she was pulled over to police investigators by Patricia Crist, the principal. "Here's the shooter's mother," Crist announced.
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From page 75... ...
Andrew told Sadoff that he didn't like the nickname. The Wurst family is Catholic.
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From page 76... ...
Before leaving for the dance, Andrew left a suicide note on his pillow, Andrew's mother told Sadoff. Andrew told the psychiatrist that a friend at the dance had seen the gun under his shirt.
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From page 77... ...
Why did he do that, rather than incite Strand to shoot him? Andrew told Sadoff that if Strand had shot him from a distance, it would not have killed him, and he did not want to be in a coma.
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From page 78... ...
All I've got left are my thoughts, and I would lose my purpose or mission in this unreal world if I told you my thoughts." When asked about important relationships in his life, Andrew stated that he loved his dog, Tasha. Sadoff asked Andrew about his parents.
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From page 79... ...
Hard-nosed police investigators are often skeptical about claims of legal insanity or mental illness, and that was certainly the case for the Pennsylvania State Police. Their theory was that Andrew wanted notoriety.
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From page 80... ...
Police investigators believe that, when Andrew was scanning the crowd of teachers and classmates, he was looking for specific kids to shoot. Investigators did not find a written "hit list" of targets, but one friend whom Andrew told of his plans had asked about a list, and Andrew did mention one girl by name.
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From page 81... ...
According to these students, they did not take Andrew's statements seriously, knowing he had a "sick sense of humor," and they failed to notify either their parents or school officials. Even the night of the dinner dance, a group of Andrew's friends thought he might have brought a gun to kill himself, and while they checked in with him to make sure he was okay, no one alerted a school chaperone about their fears.
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From page 82... ...
He told them to keep it quiet, but he also recruited them to keep an eye on Andrew, which they did. Andrew's former girlfriend told police that her date, who was one of Andrew's friends, asked her, "Would you dance with a friend if it would prevent him from committing suicide?
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From page 83... ...
One parent who knew Andrew said that he always seemed very happy to see his mother when she came to pick him up. Almost daily, Andrew's mother told Sadoff, she and her son told each other that they loved one another.
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From page 84... ...
Andrew's mother also told Sadoff that she and her husband had not been aware of Andrew's depression or his suicidal thinking until they found his suicide note after the shooting, which devastated them. Later, police investigators searching Andrew's school locker found a note labeled "Andy's Will." In a childish scrawl, Andrew had written that one of his friends should receive his music CDs.
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From page 85... ...
She also began to see changes in Andrew in eighth grade. Although her son and Andrew were no longer in the same classes, Andrew telephoned her son a lot and she would still see him occasionally.
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From page 86... ...
Police investigators characterized Andrew as being a fringe member of the group, but none of his friends described him that way in their statements to police. Two of Andrew's long-time friends objected to what they were reading in the newspapers, explaining in a story in the Edinboro IndependentEnterprise that this disturbed loner was not the Andrew Wurst they knew.
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From page 87... ...
! " Andy also asked a second girl to the dance, who later told police investigators that she laughed at him.
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From page 88... ...
Parker Middle School houses grades 5-8. In 1999, average student assessment scores for grade 8 math and reading put Parker at the high end of the range for socioeconomically similar schools in Pennsylvania.
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From page 89... ...
BOROUGH OF EDINBORO Both Parker Middle School and Nick's Place are located just outside Edinboro in Washington Township, a mostly rural area that surrounds Edinboro. With a population of just under 7,000, the Borough of Edinboro is the largest of several municipalities in the General McLane School District.
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From page 90... ...
, a landmark restaurant TABLE 3-1 Comparative Demographics: Income, Race, Home Ownership, and Poverty by Area Median % % Household % % Owning Below Area Income Black Hispanic Home Poverty United States $37,005 12.3 12.5 66.2 13.3 Pennsylvania $37,267 10.0 3.2 71.3 10.9 Erie County $35,341 6.1 2.2 69.2 12.7 Edinboro NA 4.4 1.0 NA NA NOTE: University students who live in Edinboro are counted in the census, which makes it difficult to develop a meaningful statistical portrait of the borough's permanent residents. NA = Information not yet available.
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From page 91... ...
; auto rallies and classic car cruises; historical society lectures (e.g., "History of the Hardware Stored; family events (e.g., "Baby Bison Days" at the Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm, the Edinboro Kiwanis "Peanut Days"~; seniors meetings; and adult band camps. The July 2001 calendar included a fundraising event, the John Gillette Memorial Golf Scramble, which was initiated by the Gillette family to fund a memorial scholarship.
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From page 92... ...
School officials note, however, that Parker's surveys of student drug use show rates slightly below the national average. THE COMMUNITY RESPONSE In a commentary published by the Erie Times-News just two days after the shooting, an Edinboro University professor wrote, "Is there anything we can learn to do differently after a tragedy like the one we are living through today in Edinboro?
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From page 93... ...
Gun ownership is just too much a part of the community's social fabric. But there is another factor: in support of gun ownership, people had only to point at Nick's Place owner lames Strand, who had grabbed his shotgun and forced Andrew Wurst to drop his weapon.
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From page 94... ...
After the shooting, the General McLane School District, with a grant from the Safe Schools Office of Pennsylvania, developed a character education program for its students. The program is built on six Pillars of Good Character respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, trustworthiness, and citizenship.
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From page 95... ...
After the shooting, the Catholic diocese in Erie County temporarily cancelled all school dances. In contrast, the General McLane School District avoided that step and still held the high school prom, although metal detector wands were used to screen students before they entered.
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From page 96... ...
With that, Edinboro's police chief, Jeffrey Craft, contacted all of the municipalities that send students to the General McLane School District about funding the position, but McKean Township was unwilling to take that step. In 1998, Patricia Crist had been Parker's principal for 11 years.
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From page 97... ...
In our view, there is little doubt that Andrew Wurst was mentally ill. Whether he was legally insane and therefore incapable of forming criminal intent is a harder issue to resolve, which is reflected in the contradictory psychiatric testimony heard in this case.
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From page 98... ...
Every middle school has procedures in place for teachers to refer students who require intervention, but that system appears to have broken down in Andrew Wurst's case. Following the shooting, the General McLane School District launched a high-visibility character education program.
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From page 99... ...
Whether that can happen, and whether the town of Edinboro can accept that if it does, is the next chapter of the story. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank the students, teachers, school administrators, community residents, town officials, police investigators, lawyers, court officials, and journalists who met with us or provided background materials
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From page 100... ...
We hope our report will help the people of Edinboro heal and learn from the tragedy that befell their community. We also hope that both the Gillette family and Andrew Wurst's parents will eventually find peace.
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