Diamond Bar Rumor

aandm · Post by **aandm** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:43 pm

According to the La Times

What began as a student's joke about a gun at Diamond Bar High School quickly warped into an ominous warning of a Columbine-style attack -- complete with rumors of a hit list for a Friday pep rally -- spread by text messages, phone calls and the Internet.

And Principal Denis Paul's every effort to extinguish the growing rumor fueled it instead.

By Friday morning, staff estimated that as many as half of the school's 3,260 students were absent.

"A million of my friends called last night," senior Eileen Liao, 17, said as she left after attending classes. "People really panicked. It's like the telephone game where you tell someone something and it comes out all twisted."

The runaway rumor came in the wake of several high-profile mass shootings -- nine dead at a Nebraska mall, four killed at a religious retreat and church in Colorado, and six youths who were wounded as they got off a bus in Las Vegas.

Parents said those incidents made them believe the rumor could be true.

In more than two decades at the secure, well-maintained campus, Paul said, he had never seen a rumor grow so out of control. He spent more time trying to dispel the rumor than he did investigating the joke that started it all.

Paul said a male student, whom he called a "good kid," had been disciplined for making the comment but he declined to say how. (Sheriff's officials said Friday that the incident did not merit a criminal investigation.)

But a quick resolution proved elusive. With rumors already rampant by the time classes ended Thursday, Paul decided to cancel the Friday pep rally, figuring that students were too anxious. Instead of calming nerves, the cancellation fueled rumors that the school would be under attack.

Later that night, as students mingled on campus at a concert, color guard meeting and wrestling match, they began to exchange text messages. Soon, instant messages multiplied exponentially through Myspace.com, becoming what Paul called "the perfect storm" of gossip. He fielded calls from parents until 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

On Friday morning, hoping once again to reassure people, Paul asked sheriff's deputies to park in front of the school. But the sight of patrol cars had the opposite effect, persuading many parents that administrators were still investigating a threat. Paul said deputies told him they fielded more than 200 calls about a possible attack at the school. Administrators spent much of Friday on the phone or in meetings with worried parents who streamed through the main office.

Senior David An, 17, president of the student body, came to school Friday although his mother asked him to stay home. An was nervous when he found his Advanced Placement classes half-empty, but said coming to school "felt like the right thing to do."

Nelson Huang, vice president of the Chinese American Parents Assn., heard the rumor Thursday night from his two children, both students at the school, and started getting calls from worried parents soon after. He called the principal and was satisfied the rumor was baseless.

When his children Nicole, 17, and Nicholas, 16, told him they were afraid, Huang said that as leaders of the Chinese American Student Assn., they had to trust the principal.

"It's very important to set an example that we know it's just a rumor," Huang said.

Huang sent both children to school Friday. But rumors were still swirling as he prepared for the associations' annual Christmas party, which he refused to cancel, at the school Friday night. Huang called to check on his daughter, just in case.

At about 10:40 a.m., Paul made a final effort to kill the story for good.

"Let me assure you," he said in a message sent out via the school's automated notification system, which reaches parents and students by phone and e-mail, "we have not found any guns or other weapons at Diamond Bar High School. While this rumor has grown and caused great anxiety among our students and parents, there is no evidence that there is any danger to our students."

That satisfied many parents, although some who kept their children home said they wished he had sent it out earlier.

I did not send my child to school and it was mass hysteria in Diamond Bar on friday. One of the scariest days in my, and my childs life

Jsaxm · Post by **Jsaxm** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:46 pm

It's sad how sick some people can be. Making jokes that even hint at something of this magnitude is just unacceptable given recent events in or history. Well, at least this one was only a mess of rumors.

LoyalTubist · Post by **LoyalTubist** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:51 pm

Don't say this too loudly... I don't want any of the kids here to hear about it.

aandm · Post by **aandm** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:04 pm

the kid simply said "I am 18.. we can buy guns and stuff now"
and from that, things escalated

Jsaxm · Post by **Jsaxm** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:08 pm

It is funny how quickly something like that can turn into mass histeria like what happened. I teach in Brea right down the 57 and we heard about this there too.

SithScorp · Post by **SithScorp** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 5:25 pm

[quote="aandm"]the kid simply said "I am 18.. we can buy guns and stuff now"
and from that, things escalated[/quote]

Actually, according to CA Firearm laws, at 18 years of age you may purchase rifles and shotguns. Handguns are not sold to persons under 21 years of age.

However, the semantics do not change the fact that this paranoia spun out of control. Then again, paranoia and caution are very close to one another.

LoyalTubist · Post by **LoyalTubist** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:44 am

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. And whatever you say can get you in trouble.

Hostrauser · Post by **Hostrauser** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:13 pm

Excuse me while I laugh myself to death.

Brains, people. School shootings and mall shootings and stuff like 9/11 are so effective thanks in large part to the element of surprise. People aren't going to warn everyone in the world before they go on a killing spree, so rumors like this are always false. (As for prevented school shootings, you'll note there's a difference between police acting on a rumor everyone knows and one of the conspirators having a bout of conscience and confessing to the authorities; it's the latter which happens, not the former.)

Panics like this happen when people shut off their brains and let their emotions make all the decisions (exacerbated by the fact that teenagers are highly open to suggestion and that parents are often irrational when dealing with issues that involve/affect their children).

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. -- Soren Kierkegaard

aandm · Post by **aandm** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:28 pm

the shooting wasnt announced, it wasnt even suspected until the administration made some sort of announcement to the student officers. If it had been a serious threat and the administration not gotten wind of it, it could have been a full blown incident.

Fluba · Post by **Fluba** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:53 pm

Jsaxm wrote:It's sad how sick some people can be. Making jokes that even hint at something of this magnitude is just unacceptable given recent events in or history. Well, at least this one was only a mess of rumors.

And this is why I am losing faith in our society. They often think that just because something related to it happened earlier in the week far away means that it will influence it here. Its like the idiots that go and bet on red on roulette if the last three spins came up black. Uhh, prior events don't influence that one either.

And then there is our societies lack of ability to take a joke that was made in bad taste. I heard jokes in the days after 9/11 about kids wanting to go as one of the towers with a plane in its side for Halloween. You should have seen the peoples reactions. Christ, it was in bad taste, but not to the point of some of the reactions that I saw or hearing them called terrorist supporters. Ill give that a school is not the proper place to make that kind of joke. But this kind of reaction is like that one in Florida where they are charging a 10 year old girl with a felony for bringing a knife to school. And all she had it for was to make her lunch with. Yeah, not the smartest move, but COMMON, a FELONY for her already at her age. Geeze...

Student Arrested After Cutting Food With Knife

aandm wrote:the shooting wasnt announced, it wasnt even suspected until the administration made some sort of announcement to the student officers. If it had been a serious threat and the administration not gotten wind of it, it could have been a full blown incident.

And this kind of mentality had lead to the CIA wiretaps and the Patriot Act. And that is as far into politics that I will EVER go on WoP.

Ex Nihilo · Post by **Ex Nihilo** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:30 pm

guns kill people like spoons eat cereal...

i think if someone wanted to kill someone bad enough, they'd do it with whatever.
mentioning the word "gun" in a conversation should not cause panic. if so, saying the words "pen" or "brick" should cause the same uproar.

lord hornblower · Post by **lord hornblower** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:32 pm

Something similar happened at Armijo High recently. Apparently, some kid was joking with his friend that he wished there was a bomb planted at the school so he wouldn't have to take a test that Friday. The teacher heard, and sent him to the principal's office where he was reprimanded, but things didn't stop there. The same perfect storm of rumors happened through texts and myspace, and quite a few students up and left school early on friday based on those rumors..

mkosbie · Post by **mkosbie** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:04 pm

Rumors and hysteria are a terrible thing. Reminds me of the movie "Paycheck" with Ben Afleck.

SPOILER WARNING

Afleck's character invents a machine that can see into the future for the US government. When they see a war in the machine, they go to war pre-emptively to prevent it. They do this for every prophecy they see in the machine and ultimately fulfill exactly what it predicts because of... HYSTERIA.

END SPOILER

I'm glad there was no actual threat and hope that this can serve as a lesson about the nature of rumors. Lashon Hara (roughly "the evil tongue", encompasses stuff like gossip and rumors) is forbidden in Leviticus (19:16) because of the impact it can have on someone. In fact, lashon hara is considered a bigger sin than murder in many ways. Basically, if you kill someone you take one life. If you spread false rumors, you can undermine an entire society and "take" all their lives.

IsnipeWithAknife · Post by **IsnipeWithAknife** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:21 pm

at gun free zones
yes gun free zones are appropriate in some circumstances but they wont work unless you have airport style security. If someone wanted to kill people, schools and post offices are where its at. I can only think of one school in California that has a police car stationed whenever school is in session

here in the Philippines there are private guards everywhere. they check you out before you enter the mall and then there is a guard in front of every store inside the mall. Labor is cheap here so they are able to have that many guards. They also have a lot of sales people at the mall not just guards.