UNDERSTANDING INDIGO VIOLENCE Part 2 By Elizabeth Kirby

Is there a spiritual motive lurking behind the horror of school shootings? The tragedies have happened, we can't go back in time and undo the loss of our children's lives, but we can learn from these events. All of the kids involved in the violence, the victims and the perpetrators agreed on a soul level to participate and provide us with these lessons. As hard as it is to believe during times of tragedy, there are no accidents and everything happens for a reason. The cost is too high for us to allow anger to blind ourselves to the fact that there are lessons for all of us embedded in these acts of Indigo violence. Whether or not you believe in auras and Indigo children, we can agree on the fact that our children are acting differently than they have in past generations and some are committing violent acts against their peers and parents. Violence is on the rise. The number of murders committed by children ages 14-17 years old has risen 165% since 1985 according to data compiled by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

With the Santana High School shooting, March 5, 2001, in Santee, California we have learned that Charles "Andy" Williams was bullied and teased at school prior to the shooting. Parents at the high school were so concerned about the peer bullying in 1998 they pressed police, school and city officials for help. That year the City of Santee received a $123,000 federal grant to research peer teasing, bullying and intimidation at Santana High. Three years later, officials were still gathering information and on the morning of the shooting there was a meeting with school officials discussing this information. The problem of bullying and intimidation was fully rooted in the student body before Williams even enrolled in Santana High School. He had only been attending the school for about six months prior to the shooting. From a soul level it is interesting that he chose to attend Santana High School with these problems, considering all the possible high schools available in San Diego County. In one day, Williams accomplished more to bring the problem of bullying and intimidation to light than did a research study lasting three years and costing $123,000. Who is to say that the violence is not the wake up call we need to really become aware of a problem? We, as human beings in lesson, grow during the difficult times, not the good times. Williams brought this problem local, national and worldwide media attention. We are now taking seriously the issues of peer teasing, bullying and intimidation. What are we going to do about the problem? Are we going to make the bullies accountable for their actions? Make them realize that they are just as responsible for the tragedies as the children shooting the guns are? As are the parents and teachers who do not look at teasing as a problem, but a fact of life or even a rite of passage into adulthood.

The aftermath of the school shooting at Santana High has sparked debates about trying juveniles as adults and about victim's rights. Stephen Trotto, a businessman from Massachusetts, who suffered at the hands of bullies in his school years, has started the Save Andy Williams Coalition focusing on opposing California Proposition 21. Proposition 21 allows the District Attorney's office to file charges against Williams in adult court even though he is 15 years old because it is an "adult" crime. The coalition has formed two websites (*details below) and has members as far afield as Europe.

Family members of Bryan Zuckor and Randy Gordon, who died in the Santana High School shooting, criticize the coalition's attempts to overturn Proposition 21, saying the coalition is fighting against the rights of innocent children and victims. These families have also started their own websites (**see below) and are urging people to remember the victims and to have Williams prosecuted fully in adult court.

Williams has brought two issues to the forefront of our minds: bullying and intimidation in school and trying juveniles in adult court. We are questioning if it is moral to have 15-year-old kids tried in adult court when they aren't considered adults in any other area of society. They can't legally vote, buy alcohol and cigarettes, gamble or get married. But they have committed adult crimes, so should they be tried in adult court and sent to adult prisons? Questions are being raised that require us to really look at these issues.

Two days after the Santana High School shooting, Elizabeth Bush took a gun to Bishop Neumann Catholic High School in Williamsport, Pennsylvania with the intent to commit suicide. Like Williams, she had suffered at the hands of bullies at school, even having had stones thrown at her. In the school cafeteria on March 7, 2001, during lunch time, she took out the gun attempting to scare the girl who had made her life miserable, wanting to show her what extremes she had driven Bush to. She fired a shot trying to aim away, but hit Kimberly Marchese in the shoulder with a .22 caliber bullet. Immediately after the shooting, students screamed and dove under the lunch tables for cover. Another Indigo, Brent Packer, stood up and looked into Bush's eyes and said, "Please don't do this, put the gun down it doesn't have to be like this." Bush put the gun down and no other shots were fired. In a situation like this it takes an Indigo to get another Indigo to listen. They relate to each other in a special way. They are their own true peers and can make each other realize when certain actions are unnecessary, yet still accomplish the intended goal.

Connie Chung interviewed Bush on the prime time TV show "20/20" April 13, 2001. Chung asked Bush: "Why did you do this interview?" Bush answered: "Because I want to stop as many school shootings as I can. I want to show people that there are other ways. I want to reach out to kids that are just like me, that are depressed. They want to hurt themselves; they want to hurt others. I want to stop all of that." She made a very powerful statement and has an important mission. Her story needs to be told so kids know they have options in dealing with bullies and depression.

Evan Ramsey, another Indigo, is speaking out to teens. On February 19, 1997 Ramsey used a shotgun to kill his principal and classmate at his high school in Alaska. Ramsey will not be available for parole until he is 85 years old in the year 2066. He will literally spend his whole life in prison. From his cell in a maximum-security prison, he has a message for troubled teens contemplating violence. "I would tell them the situation they're in now is not half as bad as the situation they're going to be in if they do something similar to what I did," Ramsey said. "It will only get worse."

The shooting at Columbine High School April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado has given us quite a lot to look at. The massacre might not have happened if school officials and the local sheriff had acted on signs that the two killers (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) were prone to violence. Those signs, in the year preceding the school shooting, included the gunmen's arrest for breaking into a van; their suspension from school for hacking into the school computer system; threats Harris made against another student on his web site; the discovery of a pipe bomb behind the Harris home that matched the description of a similar weapon on Harris' web site; an essay Klebold wrote for school that foretold of a siege similar to the one being planned; and a videotape on which to the two had weapons and described their murderous intentions.

School officials and the sheriff's department are not the only ones who failed to intervene in the killer's activities. Wayne and Kathy Harris and Susan Klebold had to have had some suspicion that disturbing things were going on, including the construction and storage of approximately 90 bombs in the Harris and Klebold homes and the purchases of weapons by the two teens. The sheriff has been criticized for his deputy's actions at the scene of the school shooting. During the 46 minutes before the siege ended with the gunmen's suicides, no efforts were made to engage, contain or capture the perpetrators. This prevented authorities from reaching Dave Sanders a teacher who was fatally wounded and allowed Klebold and Harris the freedom to shoot more victims. We have seen since the time of the Columbine shooting that school officials and police are taking seriously threats of violence made by teens. Many schools have enforced a zero tolerance policy in the wake of Columbine. Police now immediately contain and capture a school shooter, stopping them within minutes of the first shots fired. Now, we as parents have to work with school officials to break students' code of silence and develop ways for students to report threats of violence without fear of retribution and begin to teach our kids tools to deal effectively with bullies.

All of these kids have given us a gift, let's not waste it. We have to be part of the solution. We have to take positive action with our children and know what is going on in their lives. Parenting is the biggest job we have that all too often gets pushed aside with all of life's issues we deal with on a daily basis. But our most important job is raising our children. All children, not just our flesh and blood, all children that we come in contact with.

*www.saveandy.com and www.friendsofandyw.com
**www.lorma.org/BRYAN and www.forinnocentchildren.com

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Elizabeth Kirby is a businesswoman in southern California. She and her husband own and have operated a concrete contracting business for the last 17 years. Elizabeth is trained in the healing arts as an Emergency Medical Technician, Massage Technician, Sports massage, Reiki II, Subtle Touch Energy, Aromatherapy and Crystal/Gemstone Healing. She has studied and practiced metaphysics for the last 21 years.

She is currently writing a series of novels for pre-teen/early teens about a young girl swept into a magic land. The stories have underlying spiritual truths entwined into the action.

Elizabeth welcomes comments: elizabethkirby@prodigy.net