When a New Bedford High Student Prevented Columbine-Style Shooting

The massacre at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado on April 20, 1999 changed the world forever. It was then we realized there were no safe havens.

Amazingly, there have been many more school shootings since Columbine.

However, with the possible exception of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, my first thought is of Columbine when I hear or think of school violence, perhaps because it was the first.

New Bedford High School, the school I graduated from in 1976 and where my two sons spent their high school years, came close to becoming another Columbine.

In November 2001, a 17-year-old student alerted police to a plot by at least five students to carry out a Columbine-style massacre at New Bedford High School.

Amy Lee Bowman thought better about the plot to use explosives and guns to kill as many students and faculty as possible before the assailants killed themselves. Bowman, no doubt, saved countless lives.

UPI reported Bowman "changed her mind about taking part because she didn't want her favorite teacher to be killed."

A December 27, 2001 Washington Post article quotes former New Bedford High School Headmaster Joseph Oliver saying, "We're celebrating a success that nothing happened."

"The system worked," Oliver said.

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Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people in the Columbine massacre. Their deaths made the death toll 15, with 24 injured.

Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary, killing 26. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old. Earlier that day, he shot and killed his mother. Lanza died by suicide.