School police say vigilance key to stopping violence

Terry Webster

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 | 9:41 a.m.

The Clark County School District has managed to avoid catastrophic acts of school violence, but it has had its share of potential near misses.

Detective Calvin Walker of the school district's police department said enough knives and guns have been seized from students over the past several years to drive home the point that school violence can happen anywhere.

It was a point he made clear Monday at the Orleans while speaking before school district employees at the first Governor's Conference on School Violence.

The conference, which continues through Wednesday, covers such topics as earthquake plans and sexual harassment in addition to the potential of violence involving armed students.

School police credit their presence on campuses as the reason Clark County has averted acts of violence such as the 1999 Columbine High School shooting massacre in Littleton, Colo.

"We know the students, and they know us," Walker said.

Last week, three students at a New Bedford high school in Massachusetts allegedly planned an attack modeled after the Columbine shooting. A school janitor foiled the plan after finding a letter that said the students were planning to set off explosives and then shoot people as they ran from the building.

The students were arrested Saturday on multiple charges. The school opened Monday after an extensive search effort by police. Still, about 41 percent of New Bedford High School's 3,300 students stayed home, according to the Associated Press.

In March of this year, the Clark County School Police thwarted the potential for tragedy when they confiscated a TEC-9, an automatic pistol, from a Western High School student in an off-campus incident. The student, who was expelled, had claimed that he carried the gun in his car as protection from gang members, according to Sgt. Ken Young, spokesperson for the school police.

Delano Gilkey, another speaker at Nevada's conference, said a growing interest in the occult among young people -- specifically devil worship -- can be traced to some of the acts of violence.

During his presentation, Gilkey said devil worship teaches young people to have no morals and to do whatever they please.

Gilkey, the director of school safety for the Rock Island County Regional Office of Education in Illinois, specializes in intervention for youths involved in satanic groups or gangs.

"It's growing throughout the country, and it's a problem because people don't recognize it as a problem," he said.

An audience member sparked a mini debate among a group of about 20 persons after she related that a teacher in Carson City is under fire for wearing "occult talismans" during classes.

Gilkey said the situation has to be approached with caution, because of the religious freedoms of "any group that calls itself a religion."

Others predicted that if the teacher sues the school district, the district will probably lose.

"If it disrupts the educational process, then it becomes a problem," said Gilkey.