UnNews:Troubled preschooler runs through school with scissors
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Troubled preschooler runs through school with scissors |
12 February 2008
Ashdale, VA Tragedy struck the small town of Ashdale Tuesday when Brian McKenna, a 5-year old student in Mrs. Feeney's class, ran through the school's halls with scissors. "He was a quiet kid," said a shocked schoolmate of McKenna's, who refused to identify himself. "He kept to himself, mostly." The town is considering what to do now in the wake of such an event.
Experts, looking back, could quickly find a pattern that leads to McKenna's disturbing outburst. "He was clearly an unhappy kid with a disregard for the rules," said Wesley Yang, a criminologist at MIT. "Officials in Ashdale should be ashamed of themselves for not monitoring this boy more closely." Other incidents in McKenna's past include handing scissors blade-first to a classmate, despite clearly being told not to.
For most in the town, though, it's very hard to even process the events. "I guess what we really need is closure," said Frederick Barnes, a teacher at Ashdale Day School. "So many have been affected by this, it's just hard to imagine... that it would ever happen." There has already been a local outburst against the McKenna family, who have been decried as "monster-raisers." Other townspeople have taken a more peaceful route, holding candlelight vigils outside of the school.
There has been a deep analysis of McKenna's life, and it has turned up many unsettling things. A day before the rampage, McKenna wrote a note which read "cat eat ball," the implications of which are more than obvious. "The writings of this kid should have set off warning alarms in everyone's heads," says Yang. "Look at this. He wrote "Burn" over and over and over. It covers the entire page."
But for now, all the town can do is grieve. "Some people out there want to ban scissors. I think that's taking it a little too far," says Barnes. "Scissors didn't do this. A kid with scissors did."
Sources[edit]
- Mike Bruschi "Scissors rampage scars town". NewsNOW, February 12, 2008