## Alarming Behaviour

Is this alarming behaviour? It’s 1998. Two teenagers are making a home video. They use coarse language but laughing at the same time. Perhaps this is not alarming behaviour, but it might be cause for concern in combination with other factors.

- In 1996, their parents found a blog in which the boys expressed their hatred of school and society in general.
- Prompted by the blog, the local police applied for a search warrant, but never used it.
- In 1998, the two boys were arrested for theft and were ordered to undergo therapy.
- After they were arrested, the boys described in their blog their growing arsenal of weapons.
- In journals and video tapes they also expressed their desire to carry out an even bigger attack than the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

You probably know where this tragic story ends. On 20 April 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered twelve fellow students and a teacher and then committed suicide.

Fortunately, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s actions were aberrations. Perhaps this tragedy might have been prevented if all the pieces of the puzzle had been put together earlier. That is what this course is about: how to recognise alarming behaviour, how to discuss it with the student and, above all, how to share information both inside and outside your institution, to compile a complete picture of a situation.