Canton should move forward with ALICE program

Dear Editor:

Police Chief Berkowitz needs to go ahead with the ALICE [violent intruder defense] training. It appears that many communities in our nation already have done this. Of course, this training won’t be fool proof, but only a fool would not take action in our gun-crazy world. So long as people deny the fact that guns in the hand of a furious person kill, while knives, chairs, bats, etc. probably won’t, we will continue to have tragedies such as the one that occurred in Connecticut. They have multiplied exponentially since 2004, when the ban on assault weapons expired or was overthrown. The same day Adam Lanza killed 27 people within 10 minutes, a man entered a school in China and knifed a score of children, none of whom died. We have been so brainwashed by the munitions-making plutocrats and their hired guns, we don’t think clearly about guns, whose only purpose is to kill.

We need to know more about the ALICE training. Hiding in a part of the room that could not be seen from outside or the hall should be part of that training. The teacher who locked the door and hid the kids in a closet, putting a piece of paper over the glass in the door and keeping them calm was implementing training our teachers should have. We need a policeman at all the schools, sad to say. That’s not the best thing to do, but it’s better than arming all the teachers as has been suggested. We as a community should be called together and have some intelligent training from a mental health professional so we can better understand.

A social worker in my church told us that we have children in the halls of our schools with the same blank look Adam had — children that are shunned for being “strange,” as though that’s an okay thing to do. We need to sensitize our kids not just about bullying but about reaching out to the loner, the strange child. I’m not a fraternity supporter, but Pi Kappa Alpha, a fraternity at my college, very deliberately sought out the “odd” freshman to rush, helped to socialize them, and produced some very well prepared young men as a result. Naturally, the subject was never told why he was chosen, just one of many in the pledge class, but it showed an acknowledgement of the fact that human beings can be socialized if we reach out to them.

I’m not saying that’s the answer, but something has to be done. Our society needs to approach this societal problem from both the gun control and the mental health perspective. We already know a little of the mentally ill profile, which includes being a loner, being “different,” having difficulty making friends, being someone that people shrink from. How to prevent their peers from making their hellish life even more of one is a challenge we need to meet. The opposing pressures to group together, to conform at the middle school age level would have to confronted and allowances made.

I believe we have professionals in Canton who can come together and help our town meet this challenge. Let’s get on with it.

Sincerely,

Alice Brown

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