Police Sharing

Introduction

The issue of schools’ sharing information about their students with the police is in the spotlight. Most notably, it has been reported that Jared Loughner, the alleged “Tucson shooter” of Rep. Gabby Giffords and many others, engaged in disruptive and threatening behavior resulting in his suspension from community college, but not in the school’s notification of the police. These facts eerily echo those involving the shootings at Virginia Tech, where the school knew of the student shooter’s apparent mental illness and behavioral concerns and did not reach out to the parents or to law enforcement authorities. Immediately after the tragic 2007 on campus killings by a student at Virginia Tech, the country learned that the shooter had a history of mental illness, and had received both mental health treatment and discipline on campus. Some media commentators seemed to suggest the student’s parents and classmates and others should have been made aware of this information. A report commissioned by Virginia’s