This letter to the editor appeared in the Dakota Student newspaper at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks on April 28, 1999.  It is used with permission of the author and the Dakota Student newspaper.

To the Editor:
    I am writing in regard to the Columbine High School shootings in colorado this last week.  I am now a 22-year-old college student at UND, but this deals with my junior high experience at what was then South Junior in Grand Forks.  Between Grades 7 and 9, I was one of those kids that everyone picked on.  I was an easy target.  I had few friends and for 3 years, I absolutely dreaded the 7 hours a day that I had to be in school.  The work itself was no problem.  I had nearly a 4.0, but as I'm sure everyone knows, kids that age are extremely cruel to those who are too shy and insecure to fight back.  For those 3 years, I endured almost constant heckling, book dumpings, and I was hit on numerous occasions.  In that time, not a single adult teacher stepped up for me.  I was 100% on my own.  It pissed me off to no end, and to this day I still loathe the sight of that building because of all the things that happened to me within its walls.
    I can vividly remember many walks to school each morning trying to concoct a plan to either kill myself or those assholeds who never let me be.  The only thing that ever stopped me was that I could not work up the guts to actually do it.  The end of my hell came in the ninth grade during a study hall.  Mrs.  Soule was the teacher in the room.  For the good portion of that hour, I endured the heckling and everything else that I had had to every previous hour of every previous day for 3 years.  I snapped.  I got up and choked the kid behind me who just happened to be the most recent foe.  This was in sight of every single person in that room, including the instructor, Mrs. Soule.
    Nothing happened to me.  I was not reprimanded for being out of line just as no one else had been for making my life a living hell.
    In telling this story, I have embellished nothing.  If anything, I have understated my pain, hatred, and feelings in general in favor of brevity.  When I snapped, it was relatively harmless, but had I had the volition and the guts at the time, I have no doubt at all that what happened in Colorado last week would have happened here in Grand Forks by my hand.  Furthermore, I strongly doubt tat I am the only one ever to have endured this.  If you listen to the news and interpret the problem as being solely the shooter and his weapon, you have missed the point.  May God have mercy on your sould, because the same damn thing that happened there WILL happen here.  It's only a matter of time before some 15-year-old comes along who has the guts to use a gun to take care of problemst hat the teachers and other faculty members had been completely oblivious to.
    All it takes in one determined kid, for whom the words foresight and consequence are yet unlearned, to wreak this kind of havoc.  Grand Forks has been lucky thus far in this roulette game.  Do you still feel lucky?  I'd be worried as hell because the capability is there.  It's a wild guess though as to exactly how long the fuse is.
    There are many ways for kids to get past this stage of life.  Taking my father's advice, I ignored the situation until it got better.  The Colorado kids used murder.  I think we need to be looking for a real good alternative to both before we live, or die, to regret it.
    Forgive the bluntness of this letter, but I do have a feeling that people would prefer to take this news right between the eyes rather than a bullet.