A TALE OF TWO SHOOTINGS – There was another shooting today, this one at Gardena High School in California, which is part of the Los Angeles school district. 

The facts are confused.  We know that an African-American male student had a gun in a backpack and that two students have been wounded, one in the head.

A school spokesman says the shooting was accidental.  In this scenario, the kid with the gun dropped his backpack and the pistol inside went off, with the bullet striking the two students.  A second report has it that the sweet, innocent child pulled the gun from the backpack and that it went off, striking those two students.

Fox News is, from what I can see, the only news source reporting that the police are highly skeptical of the "accident" accounts.  Yeah, I'd imagine. 

There is no discussion about an "atmosphere" of violence, about heated rhetoric, or much of anything else.  The story is being downplayed.

However, I find the "accident" thing a bit hard to take.  I'm speculating now, but dropping a soft backpack shouldn't be enough to make a gun go off.  As far as the "he pulled it from the backpack and it went off" story, that's equally hard to accept.  The gun was obviously pointed at someone's head, since that's where the bullet went. 

The issue is whether any of the witnesses to the shooting would be willing to tell the truth.  There is a heavy penalty for "snitchin'" in some communities.

We'll follow it, but skepticism is the order of the day.

January 18, 2011