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Read other letters about this article
"At that time, the first shooting had already occurred in WAJ!!!!! Why were we allowed to leave our damn dorms?!!?!"
The police can't predict what a crazy gunman is going to do. In most cases, after shooting a few people, they skidaddle across the state line. If school officials got everybody to lock themselves in their dorms in this case, they'd be criticized for overreacting.
The second most probable thing would be for the gunman to continue shooting people in dorms - maybe in the same dorm. If school officials got everybody to stay in their dorms in this case, they'd be criticized for directing the students into harm's way.
In both cases, the students would have been better off going to class.
This has been called the biggest shooting in US history. That -est suffix should tell you: this was the exception, not the rule. So don't criticize the school for not being able to predict the unpredictable. Seems like they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
