Stockton school shooting leaves impact 25 years later
By Josh Richman and Mark Emmons, San Jose Mercury News
STOCKTON — The graves of the children buried here long ago in the cold January ground are about a mile from Cleveland Elementary School. But except for the passing cars, chirping birds and the occasional freight train rumbling nearby, the resting place is mostly silent.
Twenty-five years ago today, Cleveland Elementary was the scene of one of the nation’s worst school shootings — years before Columbine, Virginia Tech and Newtown. Former South Lake Tahoe resident Patrick Edward Purdy’s three-minute shooting rampage left five children dead and 30 teachers and students wounded. All but one of those killed were offspring of Cambodian refugees who had survived the murderous Khmer Rouge.
“This just doesn’t ever go away. I think that’s something the outside world just doesn’t get,” said Judy Weldon, 65, a retired teacher who tended to the wounded that day. “Yes, we all grow and move on and change. But we never, ever forget.”
The scars aren’t just emotional. Rob Young, then a first-grader, still carries a bullet fragment in his chest after being shot twice. The shooting, he said, “will forever be a part of me.”
But amid a renewed national gun debate reignited by an even deadlier school massacre 13 months ago in Connecticut, those who survived Stockton’s horror can add an epilogue to Purdy’s deadly lesson: Painful memories never go away but don’t necessarily define the course of people’s lives.
I’ve been in education over 30 years and I’ve watched and been a part of the pendulum swing the entire time when it comes to funding and support. I remember “secretly” teaching drug and violence prevention to my 6th grade class in Anaheim, CA at the beginning of my career because I had a principal and superintendent who in their gut knew we needed to do something to help our kids learn information and to stay safe as the middle class, mind you, community around us was experiencing a growing crime rate and our kids were in the midst of it. They knew the investment of resources would lead to a positive outcome for the kids. We expanded the notion of a district SARB (School Attendance Review Board) and began doing house calls to the homes of the kids we were concerned with. I had one young man who continued to fall asleep in my class and with the efforts of a few folks discovered that he was sleeping on the couch because his mother was in his bedroom turning tricks. After a couple of years of well-meaning but Band-Aid approaches, I moved from being a classroom teacher to developing their Safe and Drug Free Schools Division of which we were able to show the difference with particular students, their attendance and their grades as they moved up through the next couple of years. We saw dramatic change and I’m proud to say that the programs put into place remained and flourished after my departure. Why?? Because the district (and not a unified district where it’s easier to accomplish such things) decided that in order for the teachers to be able to teach, we had to have the children present at school in both mind and in body. The safety and well-being of the kids became the foundation which everything else was built on. It is the school that is the first line of defense when youth show mental health needs among many others. We all know this to be true yet this is not the foundation of our schools here in Lake Tahoe or most other communities. It’s because of money. Yet how much money is spent on the “intervention” part of a single youth whose basic needs are met? True prevention can happen in our community, but it will only happen if enough of us get involved and demand it. Prevention is ALWAYS less expensive and more productive than intervention. There are youth who come into this world who have an innate resiliency and regardless of the poor situations they are in will find that “one adult” or role model and will be okay. There are youth who have strong family guidance and direction and will be okay. But there are many youth who are those “fence sitters” in life and their skills and knowledge are not developed enough and they can go either way. I’ll continue to ask the adults in my community to actively get involved for the “fence sitters” in life. ALL kids are good kids. Some kids just get into lousy situations and it can cost them their futures. Invest time, invest your thinking, and get involved.
Great comments Lisa.
A Tahoe connection for this case in Stockton – Purdy’s mother, Kathleen Toscano, once upon at time sued LTUSD and many staff members. I don’t remember all the details – alleged abuse and I think it was 1982-3. Many of us were interviewed and prepped by the Lawyers. I don’t think anything came of the suit but there was a restraining order against her to stay off any school campus. I remember one strange visit by Mrs. Toscano to Bijou School. It took all the cajoling I could muster to get her out of the cafeteria with out incident, (during breakfast when the cafeteria was full of kids.) Back then I didn’t think about shooters on campus but she had a scary look in her eyes. I’m glad they moved away from Tahoe before her son went off the deep end or it could have been one of our schools. All the more motivation to make sure our schools, kids and staff are prepared – no matter how lovely and safe we think Tahoe is.