The suburban schoolyard shootings epidemic was set off by a well publicized incident at a High School at Sayville, New York in 1992. An 11th grader at the suburban school named Kevin Duschenchuk set off the trend by bringing a handgun to school to shoot a classmate. The weapon was found in his backpack. The principal of his school, Joseph Buderman, said according to the Mar 25, 1992 edition of Newsday that Kevin Duschenchuk, "was a good student."
From there the copying started. Shortly after the incident local teacher and parent Mrs. Smith wrote in the Newsday article "The Danger in Our Schools" (Apr 20, 1992. pg. 65) that "If these were the only incidents, we could consider them a coincidence ..." in regard to the incident in Sayville and several other incidents that occurred immediately afterwards. As the world soon found out, these would not be the only incidents of kids killing kids in suburban middle class schools. Most people, such as the teacher that wrote the article, in 1992 never heard of a rash of kids trying to shoot other kids in a school until this time. Something that really set off the trend was the fact there were 3 back to back incidents of weapon which brought a huge amount of publicity to the problem. Ten months later 17-year-old Scott Pennington brought a gun to his suburban school and committed murder, the first 1990s gun incident in schools with fatalities. With this publicity came copycats who had the seed planted in their heads. A demon seed coming from Sayville. A seed that took root and destroyed the lives of so many across the country.
Up to this time, most people never heard of kids in a quiet, middle class town bringing a gun to school to commit murder. From the start in Sayville, the media publicized it and there was a snowball effect where students started doing the same thing. Immediately afterwards Evan McMillian was arrested in a nearby town for taking a gun to school for violent purposes.
Shortly afterwards Newsday, in an article entitled, "Principal: Parents Key to Ending Killings" reported the principal of Amityville High School gave a speech about about Sayville the sudden, unexplained rash of violence in suburban schools. The article was written Mar 31, 1992, only 6 days after the student in Sayville brought the weapon to school to take out some bullies. Amityville is a long time football rival of Sayville and has a worldwide reputation for shooting violence.
There were previous incidents in regard to guns in schools, however those incidents did not set off a trend because there were long periods of time after those occurrences.
According to a student called Michael, "The real reason Kevin brought the hand gun to school was because he was being threatened..." According to a fellow honor student, "Kevin was pretty smart. We were in Gifted and talented class and stage crew together." He went on to say what he thought about the later school shootings, "I also thought after the rash of school shootings that it sounded like elements of the same story," and "I think I had an insight into their incidents as a result of seeing what happened in Sayville." The kid's behavior that were enemies of Kevin Duschenchuk was, "...I guess that's sort of typical of bullies."
"So, there were threats of physical violence on Kevin by several people the night before he brought the gun and they said that basically the next day he was going to get hurt by them." And "They had threatened him with a knife the night before."
Violence was not unknown in Sayville. He went on to say, "Some kids got jumped after leaving parties and some were beaten almost to death." Furthermore, one Sayville kid "...was beaten in the head with a baseball bat."
The key to this story is that the kid was not just some ignorant street gang member in a ghetto school. He was a gifted student that got high grades. A student like this that was unheard of to violate school rules. It is this aspect that fired up the public's imagination in the 90s. A little, timid intellectual that was threatened by a gang of criminals, who came up with the idea to mow them down with overwhelming firepower. Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
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<<The principal of Sayville High School. |
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 Sayville's football rival is well known for mass killings. |
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The principal of Amityville High School spoke about the trend of suburban kids making gun attacks on classmates, and mentioned Sayville as the one that set them off. >> |
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Web pages about growing up in the town of Sayville:
Read the story of
Melissa Joan Hart, who was
classmate of Kevin Duschenchuk , then:
Click for story of a bullied
classmate that tells about the violence of growing up in Sayville village.
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Actress Melissa Joan Hart was a classmate of Kevin Duschenchuk. She owns the show "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." They both were involved in school plays. The early episodes of the show was about two outcast girls in a school with no friends except each other. |
 The
symbol of Sayville village.
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The prevention of tragedies can be done by stopping the types of bullying in the classroom. The definition of school violence is multifaceted. A timeline shows the terrible events through the years. There are many prevention programs in America. The United States has seen an increase in recent years according to the statistics shown on this site as well as the graphs showing the increase. The statistic is grim, as shown on the graph. It is high. Ways to stop it, and to start reducing the problem by finding a solution. A solution is hard to find. Safety must be a priority. Types of attacks are multifaceted and we have a good many quotes here in regard to teen crime. The stat tells a lot. Listed below are the various laws in regard to children, gangs, and violent crime in educational institutions. The media is much to blame. There have been many incidents in the US. Incidents in Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada. The problem is worldwide. Is uniforms the answer? Recent studies and essays. Zero tolerance has a lot of negatives. Studies in violence and related topics. China and Japan.
Monica Noland shared the following poem on 2/3/01 along with this note: "please share this with everyone you know and please share it with the people at columbine high school at least you can count on some people. there are some sick people in this world and there are others who care. i am one of those who care"
we cry every night
at that horrible sight
it was very frightning
it might of been lightning
who knows about that night
they were only kids
we dont even know what they did
was it wrong or was it fright
who knows about that night
where did they go
they only know
that night that night
we wish we knew
but till that time we only cry
we wish you columbine
by
Monica Noland
