Close to home...

[Boba Fett]

[color=green]Yesterday, two juniors from my high school were arrested and charged with making bombs.

I?ve held off posting this so that I could sort out all the facts, which had been very difficult to do.

Apparently, these two students stole chemicals from the school science supply closet and used them to make explosives. Both are taking Chemistry with the same teacher that I have, and I knew both of them because they sat in the computer lab during lunch. I didn?t talk to them, but I knew who they were.

My Chem. teacher, when we asked him during class today about what had happened, grudgingly told us what he knew from Monday morning?s staff meeting. One of the students making the bomb had told one of his friends. This friend went to Mr. Barnes, our school security person, who referred the student?s names to the police. A search of one of the student?s houses revealed some extremely volatile chemical. I don?t remember it?s name, but our Chem. teacher explained that this chemical was extremely dangerous. Apparently it?s not of the nitro family, so it?s undetectable by standard bomb finding equipment.

The homemade chemicals were detonated about a half-mile from the house they were found in, resulting in a sound and a tremor that was felt a half mile away by two of my friends.

The school was searched last night by the area bomb squad, resulting in nothing found. Still, people were on edge today during school today.

This is the kind of thing that I?m used to seeing on the news, taking place in another town or state. I never dreamed that something like this would happen so close to home.

So I ask you, has anything like this ever happened to you? Have you experienced something that you thought would never happen to/near you? How did you react? What has changed since?[/color]

[Godelsensei]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]Several months ago, a little girl was abducted. I am not sure if this case is common knowledge in the states (I'd doubt it), or even throughout all of Canada.

This girl was a student in fourth grade. She attended the same elementary school as myself, and was in the same special ed programm, with the same teacher as I had.
Needless to say, this had a gigantic impact on the school, my peers and myself. Not to mention the neighborhood.

Living in a metropolis, one gets used to constantly hearing the sirens of police cars. However, though the crime rate is not increasing, the per cent of crimes involving guns is.
Nearby my home and school, seven or eight people have been shot. These shootings all took place at a plaza [I]directly across the street from the school I would have gone to if I hadn't transfered schools[/I].

Luckily, no one I knew was involved in any of these shootings.

However, I did know the girl who was abducted. Well, it's not so much that I knew her, but that I knew who she was. I remember her constantly coming to the office when my friend and I were on office duty, because she needed bandaids. She fell down alot.
When I saw her picture in the paper, under the headline, "LOCAL GIRL ABDUCTED", my stomach did flip flops. I felt as though I might have thrown up.

Because it wasn't just [I]the pretty little girl with the crinkly eyed smile[/I], as the Globe put it. It was Dong Yue--Cecilia. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Transtic Nerve]

When i was in 11th grade, there was a huge drug bust in two schools, one of which was mine. Several people I knew were arrested, people I never thought would have been into such things. People I've known for years and years. It kinda hit close to home seeing as how this was plotted out for some time and police officers walked right into the classrooms and handcuffed and took away those who were being arrested right infront of everyone else. It was a real eye opener for some. It was then we realized that the school phones and pay phones were tapped along with several Narcs inside the school. People started freaking out, afraid they be caught or something... I dunno.

Another time was a bomb threat on our school shortly after the Columbine incident. We still went to school that day... Nothing happened.

I don't think we've ever had anyone in our school arrested for making anything quite like bombs... We had the drug bust and several teachers were let go because of sexual relations with students, but thats pretty much it.

[Muad'Dib]

Alright, this happened a loooong time ago, but when I was in day-care in Texas, the place recieved at least three seperate bomb-threats. All three times (I think it was three) the police came, checked the building, found nothing, and everything went on like nothing had happened. I remember I was scared as crap, seeing I was only about five or six...

Aparently they were all pranks, but some one obviously got ticked.

Since then, I can't remember anything major happening, but my memory sucks anyway, so that's all for now!

[Godelsensei]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]My friend, Gil, wrote a bomb threat once.

He's such a moron, it's unbelievable. Luckily, no one took it seriously.

We still mock him for it to this day, though...

"You know, like the time Gil wrote that bomb threat..."[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Panda]

In my hometown we had one of the first school shootings to happen in our country. It was years before Columbine. It was a student who went into his math class and killed his teacher, 2 students and seriously injured another. My old PE teacher was actually the guy who wrestled the gun from the kid.

It was a really sad situation. He was the "nerd" in the class and his parents were going through a nasty divorce. I knew his dad from him bringing his dog in to the vet clinic I work at. The family use to own a popular sandwich shop in town and he (the shooter) use to work there and helped me on several occassions.

When things like that happen in a small community it seems like you know everyone involved. It's a scary world we live in. There was an insane amount of news coverage and the city actually brought in additional mental health care workers to handle all the people who needed help.

One of the things the community did to help recover was a nice memorial was made with the names of the victims and those who were in the class that survived the shootings. It has some benches around it so you can sit at the memorial and reflect on the tragedy.

I think the biggest change for me personally was realizing that we live in a crazy world and those "big city" problems can happen right in my own backyard.

[Maully]

[color=green]Timothy Mcvey applied for a job at the vet clinic in my home town a few months before the OKC bombings. I found that fact to be odd when I heard it the first time. I still think it's weird to think that they got all of their stuff in Kansas and that they were "hiding out" there. Kansas is normally such a boring place, I guess that is what made it the perfect setting for them, who would think to look there. [/color]

[Japan]

Just two months ago at my rival school, there was a kid that brought a gun with him that day. He wanted to kill himself. That's all he really wanted to do. All of the teachers and students made it out of the building safely. The cops just ended up shooting him once in the shoulder and once in the jaw bone. The kid is still in the hospital as I write this. The authorities are debating whether he should go to jail or not for bringing a gun to school.

[Maikeru]

We have recently had a lot of kidnappings in the area lately. Also, home invasions are a bad thing here. About half of the neighbors we know had a home invasion, or had a close call, in the past month. One of them is two doors down from my house. The kidnappings stopped in the beginning of 2004, but I still think that everyone should be careful. We also have been getting some car accidents. One of my friends left for the summer, and on the way home, they got in a car crash and died. Another person, who I don't know, was also in the car, and I found out that they were going to be in at least two of my classes this year. It's a very scary, having someone who is your friend, or who could be your friend die.

[Queen Asuka]

[color=hotpink][size=1]Drug busts were no big deal in my school because I think that Georgia has to be the marijuana capital of the world. Finding people who DON'T use it is actually pretty rare. They would have the drugs dogs come around and sniff cars and then if he barked at your car, you would be called the office to bring your keys and they would search the inside. So many people I know got sent to Alternative School that way. Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you do drugs.

As for anything super serious, not really. But this school year (thankfully I graduated), they've had to keep students in the classroom at all times except when changing classes because of all the fights that have been going on. It's insane...[/color][/size]

[sublime2004]

[size=1]a few years ago there was a shooting in my school. in my class. the kid next to me was shot in the head and i got hit in the right arm. i don't talk about it much.[/size]

[Maikeru]

Ah, I just remembered something to add.

My school has been getting drugged up lately. And my school is a Junior High. Yep. My friend used someones inhaler to get high, and he got caught and suspended for ten days. Usually we have someone getting suspended for that once a month.

We also have bully problems. Someone in my General Music class threw a rock at teachers head and knocked the teacher unconcious. He was going to get expelled, but instead was suspended. He is going to court though. This same person also got in a fight and got suspended again last week.

[Deedlit]

[color=#009966][font=Verdana][size=2]There are quite alot of fights at our school. There was one day in the first week of school when there were [i]6 fights[/i] in less than half an hour---five outside, and one in the lunchroom. We were on Code Yellow for the next two days, and because all sorts of fights have been occuring throughout the year, our principal has created a new type of homeroom system: Every day, if you do not have a first period, you must go to your homeroom [i]and stay there[/i] until second period starts. Normally that's not so bad, but they cancelled Art Club and the other early-morning clubs. That really pissed me off.[/size][/font]

[font=Verdana][size=2]There are alot of drug busts at our school. Well, not as many as some schools in the district, but there's quite a few. Most of the time people just get suspended for a few days.[/size][/font]

[size=2][font=Verdana]As for bomb threats, there was one several years ago (I think when I was in the fifth grade) that was made by two or three unnamed students. I'm not quite sure what they were trying to accomplish---maybe they just wanted a few laughs?---but they said they would blow up the schools the next day. I didn't believe the threat, so I went to school anyway, and it was pretty amusing as to how seriously everyone took it; over half of the school was absent. Needless to say, the few wanna-be bombers were discovered and arrested. [/COLOR][/font][/size]

[Godelsensei]

[COLOR=Gray][FONT=Courier New]The little girl I mentioned earlier was found dead in a Missasauga ravine yesterday morning.

This is the second case of an abduction-murder within two years, in this area.

When things like this happen so nearby, in an place you once felt all but completely safe in, it really changes your perspective. Beyond the smiles and laughter at school and on the street, you can sense a genuine depression among, well, every one.

The scariest part of this case was that this girl was abducted from her bedroom. Some one broke in through the basement window (you know, those tiny, ceiling-ward ones), and managed to snatch her from her bedroom, without waking any of the six or seven peope in the house.

It is truly a sad world, where there are people who will murder a nine year old.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=darkviolet]

A few years back a kid down the street from me was arrested for forgery, money laundering and counterfiting along with a few of his friends. He had gone to the public high school in my hometown and I guess was on high honor roll when he graduated.

A few months before I moved to Killeen TX there was a robbery, rape and attempted homicide over by where I lived. The lady who it had happened to was on one of the 60 minutes things or something and in Cosmo.

My friend also told me that before I had moved to my apartment some woman was kidnapped and raped while pumping gas. Lincoln bought me pepper spray and forbade me from leaving the apartment alone after dark without his switchblade.

There was a shooting in the apartment complex I lived in back in May. Nobody really knows what happened there. Someone said he shot himself, and someone else said it was drug related. I hated having to go get my mail after that because the apartment where it happened was infront of my mailbox. I was so glad when we moved across the complex.

Oh and while I was up in NY last April/May for my father-in-law's wake there was a fire in the apartment complex as well.

One of the guys that my husband gamed with went over to Iraq with his unit last April (4th ID). They got shot at the second week they were there and the guy went crazy. He's in a psych ward somewhere. His name was Calvin.

Well, there's all the fubn stuff that's happened around me, I am so boring![/color]