Four people were injured and thousands of lives changed forever when TimberView High School senior Timothy Simpkins opened fire in a classroom on October 6. 

A deplorable fight initially blamed on accusations of bullying is what led to Simpkins pulling out a .45 caliber pistol from his backpack in the middle of class and pulled the trigger. School was cancelled the next day and students came back on the following Tuesday.

Mansfield ISD announced that they will now have heightened security measures by adding more officers, having randomized classroom checks for weapons and having an officer assigned to high traffic areas in the school through video surveillance. One of the victims, a 15 year old Zacchaeus Selby, was shot 4 times and was in a medically induced coma; he has been in and out of surgeries.

Why have school shootings increased by 19%? According to the American Counseling Association since 2000 157 K-12 school shootings have occurred. “People and kids aren’t handling it like they should ,” said seventh grader Lola Walker. In comparison to Scandinavian countries, an American student is 13 times more likely to be killed in a gun homicide. 

About 20% of people aged 12-18 experience different types of bullying nationwide according to Stop Bullying.

Do students feel like this could happen here at ROMS? “I feel like this couldn’t happen at our school because we have nice students and only some of them are rude because they had a bad day,” said eighth grader Micah Broussard. “People should try to talk to someone.” said eighth grader De’Camrohn Mathis. 

How should schools including ours try to resolve the bullying? “Bullying should be resolved by having the student council learn how to talk to students and how to do what regular counselors do because some kids are scared to talk to adults.” stated eighth grader Micah Broussard. Simpkins’ parents said he had been bullied and robbed at school before. Typically schools have plans in place to handle bullying. More action may be needed 

What would you do if this happened at your school? Eighth grader Anthony Taylor said that if he was one of the students, he would jump in front of the student shooting despite having a gen pointed at his face, look him straight in the eyes and speak to the student him.

“Don’t say, ‘everthing’s going to be okay,’ because you hear that everyday.” Taylor said. “Instead, say something from the heart.” He would’ve told the shooter to “put down the gun because life doesn’t end this way.”

“You have to inspire them to be better than this and be better than what they are now,” Taylor added.  

There were other ROMS students who were personally impacted by the Timberview shooting because of relatives who are a part of that school community. Those ROMS students did not want to be interviewed at the time the story was being written.