School’s Mock Tombstones Tell of Violence to Young

In the early morning hours Thursday, some of the campus at Huntington Beach High School turned into a mock cemetery to bring attention to the widespread violence striking young people.

Student volunteers carefully placed cardboard tombstones with statistics about violence as epitaphs.

“It kind of made me sad,” said Jeff Lineberger, 15, a freshman who helped install the tombstones. “I was thinking it’s sad that there’s so much violence committed every day. It’s not right.”

Principal Jim Staunton said the tombstones are statistical reminders of how much violence takes place among people younger than 18. “There are 50 tombstones, and each represents 100 acts of juvenile violence across the nation every day. We’re reminding students that every day there are 5,000 acts of juvenile violence.”

The project was a joint effort of the high school and its Parent-Teacher-Student Assn., Staunton said. “We wanted a theme this year on something that parents could be involved in, and we came up with school safety. We decided we’d spend a week looking at the problem of violence in general.”

According to U.S. Justice Department statistics, violent acts by teen-agers are increasing nationwide at an alarming rate. In a 1992 study, the Justice Department found that aggravated assault cases, the biggest category affecting young people under 18, increased 80% in that one year alone.

“Criminals are getting younger; victims are getting younger,” said Wesley Skogan, a political science and urban affairs professor at Northwestern University in Illinois, who analyzed the national statistics. “It’s a combination of bravado, hopelessness, access to firepower and allures of the drug market.”

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The weeklong events at Huntington Beach High are designed to make students consider how violence can affect their lives.

Campus activities this week included a student art contest on the themes of peace and diversity. Many of the students’ artworks on Thursday brightly adorned one section of the campus.

But the tombstones were the big attention grabbers. Clusters of students paused at the mock graveyard as they hurried from class to class.

“The world is getting really violent,” said Travis Vaughan, 15, a sophomore, as he looked at the tombstones. “So many thousand deaths a day is rather much.”

Summer Orosz, 14, a freshman, said, “It’s sad that all these people are doing these violent crimes for no reason.”

Another freshman, Stefanie Richardson, 14, said, “Seeing these tombstones makes me realize how many acts of violence are committed each day.”

The tombstones had stark statistics written on them. One marker grimly noted: “One in four victims of a violent crime is a juvenile aged 12-17.”

Some students gazing at the tombstones asked the principal questions about the markers. “Does this mean 5,000 kids are killed every day?” asked one student.

Staunton shook his head. “No, it means there are 5,000 acts of violence by juveniles throughout the nation every day,” he said. “Not all are deaths. But every single day 17 youths do die from acts of violence.”

He said guest speakers on campus this week have tried to hammer home the message that violence is needlessly killing teen-agers. “One of our speakers, a judge, told the kids that ‘Once you let go of that bullet, you can’t call it back,’ ” the principal said.

Julie Engquist, the high school’s community resource coordinator, said the mock cemetery was deliberately designed to be bleak.

“We wanted something with a little shock value to make them think,” Engquist said.