Student who took photo of gun at Grady explains how and when. But he says bigger question is ‘why’ behind incident.
Grady High student Joe Lavine shot this photo of the gun possibly involved in the accidental shooting at Grady High School In Atlanta on Wednesday. (Joe Lavine, The Southerner)
I asked Joe Lavine, the Grady High School student who photographed the gun that may have been used in yesterday’s shooting at the APS school, to tell us how he happened upon it. The photo has appeared in the AJC and on TV.
There was a concern on the blog that a student photographer was “roaming” the Grady campus in the midst of a lockdown after a 17-year-old girl shot herself accidentally in the leg Wednesday morning in a school courtyard.
I had suggestedthat the student photographer may have been crossing the courtyard en route to class.
Joe Lavine is senior sports editor of the Grady High Southerner, which is a nationally acclaimed student publication.
Here is his response to how he got this photo:
I would love to clear some things up. Here’s what happened. I walked out into the courtyard, and the first person I saw was the girl, limping in obvious pain, toward the door that I had just exited. I assumed she had twisted her ankle… I asked if she was OK and she didn’t respond. She proceeded to rush through the door, and a custodian followed behind her to assist in escorting her to the nurse/ambulance.
The courtyard was occupied by only several groups of students who were all in gossip mode. From eavesdropping, I soon discovered that she had accidentally shot herself. I proceeded to walk toward my class, across the courtyard. Keep in mind, this is all within 10-15 minutes after the incident, before administrators even were aware, so obviously before the lockdown. Thank you for not jumping to conclusions; you were correct that it was during a class change.
I saw a crowd gathering on the edge of the pathway. They were all gazing down toward the gun, which was about 15 feet down a hill of monkey grass. Everyone was being cautious, remaining on the pathway; they had heard that the gun shot was an accident, so people were wary of the possibility that the gun was faulty. Then, I walked down and took the picture. The custodians were in the area and, from what I could tell, they began handling the situation (making sure students didn’t approach the gun, finding administrators).
I was impressed by this comment on your blog, which is almost entirely accurate: “The shooting happened in an outdoor area between buildings and kids were moving from place to place between classes. The photo was taken immediately after the shooting, before the lockdown as custodians were securing the area and notifying administrators.”
The only thing I would specify is that the photo was taken between five to 10 minutes after the shooting. I don’t think that quite constitutes “immediately.”
Though I understand it is important that I cleared this up, I think it is more important that we move on from my story and focus on the real issues at hand. Why did the student feel the need to bring a gun to school?
Is it possible to prevent these incidents without making the school a fortress? How can we use this incident to unify Grady students and cross racial boundaries?
What can we do to prevent teen gun/gang violence when that is all that many kids have grown up around?
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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73 comments Add your comment
Meli
February 28th, 2013
3:22 pm
Let’s get back to the real issue: a 17 year old girl accidentally shot herself with a gun she was not supposed to have, carrying it to school, where she felt there was a good possibility–either because the metal detectors are defective or she had friends who were going to let her in a side door–she was going to be able to safely bring it in and use it. There are times I understand that kids do stupid things and make mistakes, but this mistake needs to cost her. She needs to be expelled permanently, not allowed to receive her diploma, given a permanent restraining order preventing her from returning to the campus for any reason, and forced to have to get a job and work to go to college instead of getting any scholarships, including the Hope scholarship. That way if she was actually bringing the gun to someone else instead of for her own purposes, it will be a lesson to the other students at Grady that you won’t get off light if you get caught.
intown parent
February 28th, 2013
3:29 pm
To Inman and Grady Safety – As you are so familiar with the issues at Inman and Grady, what are your proposed remedies?
Meli
February 28th, 2013
3:34 pm
@Private Citizen–quit showing your ignorance. Grady HS is NOT next door to Grady Hospital. Grady Hospital is in Downtown Atlanta. Grady HS is in Midtown, across the street from Piedmont Park. The two locations are not near one another. And btw, Grady Hospital also treats car accidents, burn victims and delivers babies. Under your misguided logic, close proximity to a hospital causes women to get pregnant, people to burn themselves, or run their car off a road and hit a tree. Oh btw, implying this girl thought it was okay to bring a gun to school because Grady Hospital is in an area with a large number of African Americans is (dare I say it?) RACIST.
APS Parent
February 28th, 2013
3:46 pm
@ Inman and Grady Safety: As a long-time (and still) APS parent (Morningside/Inman/Grady), I do not share your concerns about the adequacy of school safety measures, nor do I believe the school environment is unsafe. I believe (and I think research backs this up) that attending school is the safest activity any of our children engage in. It is unfair to hold school administrators to a standard of perfection in assuring that absolutely nothing bad will ever happen to any of our children at school, or that no child will ever seriously misbehave. Your purpose may not be to “alarm the community” with your comments, but it is pretty clear that you are alarmed. I hope never to see irrational fears turn Grady (or any other school) into a guarded fortress, rather than the open and inviting learning community that it is.
frankie
February 28th, 2013
3:46 pm
So who let her into the school without going through the metal detectors..they should also receive punishment for aiding a person with a gun… I would assume they whoever they are will say they let her in notknowing she had agun…
TheGoldenRam
February 28th, 2013
3:47 pm
I agree with the other posters, Joe is certainly a gifted young writer.
What’s most troubling is his last sentence regarding gang violence.
Is Grady one of those schools that are ‘higher performing’ because it uses a ‘school within a school’ model? Our district uses that trick as well. Put a magnet or theme school inside of a bad neighborhood school to game the numbers and hope the high achievers balance out the gang bangers and other misfits.
Like Maureen’s previous post pointed out; modern social media is a powerful thing.
Maybe someone can ask Morgan “Nocashnoconvo” Tukes why it appears she’s throwing a ‘Bloods’ street gang hand sign in her Facebook profile picture.
https://www.facebook.com/morgan.tukes
Don't Tread
February 28th, 2013
4:26 pm
“Mom said in TV interview that the family had no guns.”
Either Mom’s trying to cover herself, or just plain ignorant. (How does one shoot themselves without a gun?) It would be interesting to find out who the buyer of the gun was, if the investigation goes that far.
TC
February 28th, 2013
4:59 pm
Nice pink pistol!
Private Citizen
February 28th, 2013
6:48 pm
Somebody read the comments on this post: http://vahi.patch.com/articles/report-officer-uses-taser-gun-on-two-7th-grade-girls-fighting-outside-inman-ms#sthash.k4LQyN89.dpuf
It tells of a student being attacked inside an APS school and seriously injured, and APS refusing to bring charges against the students who made the attack. If this is true, Errol! Errol! Errol! Such an authoritarian you are. The man of justice~~~! who sends a clear message of governance (NOT).
Private Citizen
February 28th, 2013
6:50 pm
Accessorizing firearms like they’re purses or shoes is a great moral error.
Will10
February 28th, 2013
6:59 pm
Very good reporting once again by the Southerner!
As far as Grady’s safety goes, Its pretty darn safe, sure there were fights, what school doesn’t have them. Most of them occurred in the school parking lot. Grady already has metal detectors on the 3 main entrances as well as security guards. The issue at hand, and what you will deal with at all schools is that there will always be un guarded entrances that students will sneak friends into. Grady already has card reader locks on most of the doors that auto lock from the outside and buzz if the door is left open. What is true is that you don’t want schools to be fortresses, and yes teachers are there to teach.
independent thinker
February 28th, 2013
8:40 pm
Put the parents and her in a cell together until someone tells the truth about who bought the gun and supplied the ammunition. My daughter- no way man!
mountain man
February 28th, 2013
9:32 pm
“Put the parents and her in a cell together”
Are there parents? Plural?
Ed Johnson
February 28th, 2013
10:30 pm
“I think it is more important that we move on from my story and focus on the real issues at hand. Why did the student feel the need to bring a gun to school?”
– Joe Lavine, student
Imagine that. Joe Lavine, student, asking a “Why?” question. Now, might adults in APS ask the same question? Probably not because that would require them to work harm to learn something. How much easier to just dish out punishment perhaps as an intention to “teach a lesson.” How little we seem to want to understand that even children are agents unto themselves.
mountain man
March 1st, 2013
6:18 am
“Imagine that. Joe Lavine, student, asking a “Why?” question. ”
We ask “why”, but we get no answers. No one will answer any questions. Someone accused me of having a stereotypical view of urban schools – maybe I do. But are they ACCURATE views. When I heard the story my “stereotypical” view led me to think it was probably a black female, Is that accurate? My stereotypical views led me to assume that there is no father figure in her household. Is that accurate – no one has said. I am not saying this because I think that blacks are inferior they are not. But blacks are much more likely to be of lower SES standing and lower SES standing are linked to these “bad behaviors”. My “stereotypical” viewpoint of our local schools its that several of the graduating seniors are pregnant or already have a baby – that seems to always be accurate. And that nas nothing to do with being black, because none are black.
mountain man
March 1st, 2013
6:20 am
By the way, if we had gun registration, we could look at the serial number of the gun and see who the owner was, or if it had been reported stolen.
mountain man
March 1st, 2013
7:00 am
Ok, so I have a stereotypical viewpoint of urban schools and their problems. I was wrong, there apparently IS a dad in this girl’s life (not that I could find that out from AJC – I had to go to WSBTV).
Maureen Downey
March 1st, 2013
8:01 am
@mountain man, Not sure why you couldn’t find it in the AJC. I read a story yesterday that quoted the dad.
Maureen
Mountain Man
March 1st, 2013
8:54 am
Mareen – Sorry – I must have missed it. And I thought I read everything about the situation.
Private Citizen
March 1st, 2013
9:18 am
mountain, gun registrations are used to make lists before the guns are collected.
Roger K.
March 1st, 2013
9:25 am
Dear Grady Cluster,
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the fact that two days after a girl brings a gun to school and plants one in her own thigh, the biggest story is still about the journalism ethics of a high school reporter who took a photo of the gun. A few people seem to be asking the right questions, but not nearly enough. But, hey, y’all, we found more reasons to use Twitter!
Secondly, let me just point out that during the school rezoning process (and the subsequent follow up regarding the expansion of the Drew Senior Academy) a few of us kept pointing out that Grady was over rated and had a number of problems that some of you kept sweeping under the rug. If this had happened at Drew Charter, the entire tone of this conversation by most of you who post here would be completely different. (And yes, Maureen, I am including YOU in that observation.)
For those of you in the Sacred Zip Codes, you can keep your red lines on the map that funnel you to Inman and Grady. Those of us in 30317 will continue the good work we’re doing and continue to out-perform you on the CRCT.
Sincerely,
The entire neighborhood of East Lake
Mountain Man
March 1st, 2013
9:52 am
“mountain, gun registrations are used to make lists before the guns are collected.”
Yes, yes, I know – first comes registration, then the government starts seizing all our single barrel shotguns so we will have nothing to shoot down those F-22 fighter jets, and Apache helicopters, and the nuclear cruise missles when we find that the US government has become a tyranny and we should be revolting.
And I am sure that you read the second amendmet to say we should ALL be able to possess nuclear fusion weapons and f-35 fighters (after all, are these not ARMS?).
Tha Truth Hurts
March 4th, 2013
9:13 am
Why??? Seriously. We live in a nation that has from its inception used firearms to conquer, maim and kill. A nation that spends more on weapons and defense than its does on education and humanity. Our gun problem will not go away, it is nested in American culture. Our kids aren’t dumb. That is why they curse, carry guns, engage in risky behaviors. It is seen as cool and a way to be like an “adult” in our society. Until the society begins to change, the sick behaviors that it produces will continue.