Teachers, Students Grapple with Suicide at PA High School
Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 12/15/2006
About 50 guidance counselors gathered in the Springfield Township High School library on Thursday, December 14, to help grieving students and teachers cope with the tragedy that took place earlier this week. On Tuesday morning, 16-year-old Shane Halligan packed an AK-47-type rifle into a duffle bag, went to school, and shot himself in the head.
Media specialist Joyce Valenza was working on a language arts assignment with students and was wrapping up the project the morning Halligan killed himself outside the library. "Just two days ago, we were working on this really exciting, meaningful project, and now it seems so unimportant," Valenza says. "Suddenly, your life shifts."
On the morning of the suicide, Halligan arrived at the school, just outside of Philadelphia, at 8:45 a.m. and was asked to sign in because he had showed up 45 minutes late. After attending his first class, he pulled out the rifle—he had sawed off the weapon's stock so it could fit in his bag—and fired five shots in the air. "He had no intention of hurting anybody, because he told people to get down," Principal Joseph Roy says.
The shots sent students diving into classrooms, and about 100 others ran outside the school. When Roy heard a student scream, "Someone's shooting a gun," he quickly got on the school's PA system and announced a "lockdown," an emergency protocol that requires moving all students against the walls, turning off the lights, and locking all doors. The procedure was tightened after a 17-year-old was arrested and expelled in September for bringing a loaded revolver to school.
Roy then walked into the hallway, which had "literally cleared in 30 seconds" to see what was happening. Once he passed all the smoke and dust, he saw Halligan with his weapon, and Roy ran back to his office to call for help. It took about 50 seconds for the police to arrive, he says.
When the police arrived, the teen was standing outside the media center. "The police ordered him to drop the gun," Roy adds. "Then he took his own life." A suicide note was found in the pocket of his jeans, and there were no other injuries.
The shooting occurred while students were heading to their next classes, and Valenza and her aides scrambled to pull as many students out of the halls and into the library before locking the door. "It may have been my motherly instincts and adrenaline, but we were just grabbing kids," Valenza says. While everyone was hunkered down in the library, Halligan "pulled on the doors" trying to enter twice. "I heard somebody pulling on the door, and I just kept looking at my kids, who were under computer tables against the side of the wall," says Valenza.
More than 90 percent of students showed up for school two days later although classes officially ended that day at noon.
Since the September arrest, the school's two security guards have routinely locked all doors except the front entrance. The school, located in an upper-middle-class suburb, already had dozens of surveillance cameras throughout. And it recently installed a buzzer system, which, ironically, went into effect the day Halligan killed himself, says Roy.
As for why Halligan took his life, press reports say he was upset about the privileges his parents had threatened to revoke after receiving poor grades on his report card. But Roy says there were no signs of trouble. "He wasn't a detached loner," he adds. "He was an Eagle Scout, a fire department volunteer, and in the thespian troupe. He was connected to people, and he had adult role models. His family is well established and well respected"
