When a 14-year-old brought a gun into a Taber high school in March 1999, killing one student and wounding another, 
the phenomenon of young people settling scores through homicidal rage stopped being an isolated American problem.
Exploding just eight days after the mass killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., the Taber shooting became a defining moment across Canada, especially for those who believed the nation was inoculated against such violence and that preparing properly to handle such likelihood was unnecessary.
It wasn’t, and it’s why Lethbridge College became immediately involved in finding an early-warning solution to high school violence. The result has become the benchmark across the high school system. The college is now supporting an initiative to create a similar game plan for the postsecondary level across Canada.
“No one had an interest in threat assessment before Taber,” says Kevin Cameron, who nine years ago was brought in as a family therapist to begin analyzing the questions to which the tragedy gave rise. “Many people still ask themselves ‘Where were these shooters when I was in school.’ The fact is, there were kids back then who could have become those shooters, but opted to kill only themselves instead.”
Following the Taber shootings and his subsequent study for the provincial government, Cameron established the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response, partnering with Lethbridge College to create and offer unique training for the nation’s school districts to prepare them to deal with similar situations.
“Lethbridge College helped shape the format and championed the cause,” says Gloria Cormican, program administrator for Family Life Studies. “Kevin was the person with experience in the field; we provided the program credibility. It also fits in well with our Criminal Justice program’s standard of excellence.”
Cameron, along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Behavioural Sciences Unit, developed Canada’s first comprehensive, multidisciplinary threat assessment training program. With funding from the solicitor general, they developed a pilot project to allow school districts to be proactive in dealing with perceived problems.
Once the pilot received a positive evaluation in Alberta, word of its success began to spread. Lethbridge College placed the cost-recovery program in its Family Life Studies area and promoted it across the country. It’s been embraced: Cameron, the program’s lead trainer, can find himself in Nanaimo, B.C. one week and Niagara Falls, Ont., the next; every school district in New Brunswick has taken the course.
Now, Lethbridge College and Cameron are developing training for the post-secondary level, in the wake of recent incidents at Dawson College in Montreal and Virginia Tech. Cameron sees a possible pattern in the spread of violent reaction to colleges and universities from high school.
“Many of the troubled students in post-secondary institutions today were 13 to 16 when Columbine occurred,” he says. “They’re now attending colleges. We predicted this would happen.”
Lethbridge College is offering an initial round of training for the post-secondary level in late August. Cormican says unlike the high school program, this edition could transfer into the United States where a greater population equals a greater risk.
So how does a school district go about assessing which threats demand instant attention? When he was seconded to the Alberta government in Taber’s aftermath, Cameron studied all U.S. shootings for the previous five years and found in many cases the schools in question merely suspended the students making the threats, rendering them even more isolated. Tragically, most subsequent attacks were made shortly after the shooters were suspended. For many on the verge of violence, the suspensions were the final straw.
School shootings are, says Cameron, the “perfectly crafted” crime for young people in a suicidal-homicidal state. Overwhelming media interest can, regrettably, provide a recipe for those next in line.
“The fluid nature of the act allows them to take revenge before killing themselves. It’s predictable; now we understand it. They have an intense media script written for them to follow.
“These are not ‘copycat’ killings; no one goes from zero to 60 because of something they saw on television. Instead, they are ‘imitators’ not ‘innovators.’ The high profile the media has given to violence intensifies already existing symptoms.”
Cameron says his studies have ended up contributing information to the field of threat assessment.
“That was never our intention. We only wanted to develop a tool. But we never stop learning. Our National Training Protocol is in its seventh edition in seven years; the field is revolutionary.”
Indeed, new insights are being winkled from each investigation. Equally heartening has been the response shown by school districts to the training.
“We’ve received an unbelievable reception. Now, two provinces (B.C. and New Brunswick) are creating provincial protocols for the handling of each new threat.
“That’s a huge blessing because it aids in communication; it makes it mandatory for all agencies to work together, from mental health agencies to child services to the police. It shows how credible our training has become; governments don’t usually jump at this stuff. ”
Alberta’s Palliser School Division did, in fact, jump, taking the training as soon as it became available.
“For school districts in southern Alberta, 1999 was the year we realized no student, no school and no school district was immune from the potential of violence and tragedy,” wrote the division’s administration.
“Our multidisciplinary teams respond jointly to ensure high-risk youth receive recommended supports and services. There is zero tolerance for not responding to threatening behavior.”
Similar comments have been received, such as this one from the Yukon:
We have created an environment where education, health care and police professionals are working collaboratively to proactively address issues of violence. Yukon schools and communities are safer places as a result.”
It was a lack of collaboration, says Cameron, which led to the April slaying of three children in Merritt, B.C. Suspect Allan Schoenborn, the children’s father, was arrested several days later by a civilian after a police manhunt. Just days before the children were killed, Schoenborn had been arrested for making threats at a Merritt elementary school.
“The suspect was giving multiple signs of potential trouble to everyone dealing with him during moments in time,” says Cameron. “With a formal protocol in place, authorities could have intervened at a multi-disciplinary level.”
Many school districts who take a training sampler soon realize they want the full package.
“They want it not just to deal with school shootings and student-to-student violence,” says Cameron. “They’re seeing student-to-staff and staff-to-staff violence. It’s occurring in all forms.”
Cameron is booked a year in advance and consults on an almost daily basis with some jurisdiction in Canada. It’s perhaps a sad reflection on the times.
“This type of violence is not going to end anytime in the near future,” he says. “I anticipate it will continue for at least another decade.”
