The Largo shooting underscored the vulnerability educators feel to acts of violence. While talking tough about the measures in place in their districts, local school officials soberly discussed the impossibility of predicting that they never would have their own Littleton. The obvious troublemakers are easy to watch, officials said. It's the quiet ones, the loners, who exist sub-radar year after year, who may be potential trouble. Or maybe not.
Every situation is different.
Sometimes things don't manifest themselves until much later. Student journalists from the newspaper trooped into her office yesterday to press her about how she could be sure their school would remain safe. At Colorado's Columbine High, the loners were part of a group that called itself the Trenchcoat Mafia. No matter what the weather, they wore their black trenchcoats Gothic garb, many call it. At Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Principal Ann Monday said she and her staff look for clues to alienation and unhappiness, including that sort of dark attire.