On Jan. 5, 2011, Millard South High School students in Omaha, Nebraska experienced a violent incident that has been dubbed "The worst school shooting incident in Nebraska history". Around 8AM Wednesday morning, 17- year old high school Senior Robert Butler Jr. was summoned to the principal's office after a surveillance camera revealed that he had purposely driven his vehicle over the school football field. Butler's punishment consisted of a 19-day suspension. After being escorted out of the school, Butler returned a few hours later(around 12:45PM) and opened fire on Assistant Principal Vicki Kaspar, mortally wounding her, and injuring Principal Curtis Case. Approximately 30 minutes after the shooting took place, Butler was found dead a mile from the high school from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. While this incident has been named the worst school shooting in Nebraska history, I view this incident as rather mild. In the past, I have heard horror stories of school shootings in which students are nearly tortured by their attackers before being murdered. This type of torture is not seen in the Millard school shooting. Butler took revenge(hopefully I am accurate in saying this) on the two individuals that he believed to be a threat to him at that particular moment.
Those who knew Robert Butler Jr. referred to him as a good, but unhappy student who struggled about the midyear move he had to make from Lincoln to Omaha, Nebraska. Though Butler had been unhappy with the transition to a different school, he had not had any disciplinary problems prior to driving his car across the football field. There is something to be noticed about this description of Robert Butler Jr. He was not described as a troublesome or disturbed child. Instead, he was described as "good, but unhappy". This sounds pretty normal to me. Many students, especially teens,can easily become unhappy when things don't go quite right in their life. Not all of them are driven to murder, but this does not mean that they aren't suffering. Another feature that I have noticed about this incident is that Butler had the opportunity to shoot any other staff members or students that he wanted to, but he DID NOT. He did not display any anger or hatred towards anyone else. This is very uncommon in school shootings. Most of the time, innocent students are killed by remorseless teenage killers. Robert Butler Jr. is not, and should not be labeled a remorseless killer. Either before or after the shooting took place at Millard, Butler posted to his facebook that he is sorry to all those that knew him because they will hear about the evil he had done,but that the school(Millard) had driven him to to this. "I greatly affected the lives of families ruined but I'm sorry. goodbye" Feeling bad for the families of his victims and showing signs of remorse, are not something that is usually seen in school shooters. Instead, it shows that there was still some good left in Butler.
What I am trying to point out here is that not all killers can be labeled as "bad". From a philosophical standpoint, what is bad? More specifically how can a person be viewed as bad? This is a moral question that humans still struggle to answer. What people forget is that not all people handle stress in the same way. Butler's difficult transition to a new school may have been the trigger for the shooting. If someone, anyone had taken the time to really understand his thoughts and feelings, then this ordeal may have been prevented. Schools provide some assistance for struggling students(aside from academically), but expect the suffering students to explicitly ask for help. Not all students do this. School officials should try their hardest to reach out to ALL students. In fact, parents, teachers, principals, friends, relatives, and even neighbors should never think twice about helping someone that they believe is in need of help.
While my heart goes out to the victims of the Millard High shooting, my heart also goes out to Robert Butler, Jr. A kid described as "good' who will now forever be viewed as "bad."
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