Seattle Gay News 3/9/2001 School shooter taunted as 'Gay' by Barbara Dozetos
Gay.com/PlanetOut Network
Anti-Gay ridiculing may have played a role in the Santana High School shooting earlier this week.
The taunts of fellow students who called him Gay mentally tormented the 15-year-old boy who opened fire on schoolmates in a San Diego suburb this week, say friends.
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Mary Nederlander and her daughter, the former girlfriend of accused gunman Charles Andrew Williams, described Williams as an unusual but popular and caring young man, who was miserable in his new home.
Nederlander said that since Williams moved from his Maryland hometown to California, he had sent her e-mail describing taunting from fellow students at Santana High School. "They were teasing him, calling him 'country boy.' He didn't dress right; he didn't look right. He was skinny. They called him Gay," she said.
Williams's story is not unusual, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The organization reports that anti-Gay harassment has been a factor in many of the school shooting incidents in the past few years. Referring to a study of U.S. middle and high school students commissioned by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), a GLSEN report concluded, "For boys, no other type of harassment provoked as strong a reaction on average; boys in this study would be less upset about physical abuse than they would be if someone called them Gay."
Williams allegedly fired off more than 30 rounds in the school on March 5, killing two and injuring 13 others.
"Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the
sanctity of human life." --Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)