By Marcus Jones February 11, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. EST Washington Post
Marcus Jones is the Montgomery County chief of police.
When a 17-year-old student allegedly shot a 15-year-old student at Magruder High School on Jan. 21, there were several disturbing aspects to the incident. First, of course, that the shooting took place at all, and within the confines of a Montgomery County public school, at that. Second, the weapon used was a “ghost gun,” otherwise known as a privately manufactured firearm, made from a mail-order kit and totally untraceable.Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up.
The element of the crime that has the longest-lasting impact and might be the most serious danger to all of us is that there were witnesses to the crime who did nothing to help the victim or try to make sure the person who committed the crime would be caught.
This wasn’t a case in which the students took a vow of silence to protect themselves from retribution or simply didn’t want to get involved. Just the opposite. They told the whole world, but not the appropriate part of the world. Rather than notify the school staff or get in touch with 911 by calling or texting, students instead posted about it on Twitter and Snapchat. Their followers knew what had happened at the school, and whoever received the shared or retweeted tweets knew, and perhaps they even sent it further along. None of that helped someone who was in need. In the long run, after the student who was shot recovers and after ghost guns are banned (I hope), that’s the real tragedy here.
Social media can cause some of our best citizens to lose focus during a critical moment. I’m not here to attack Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and the rest. Plenty of others are doing that quite well. There’s a lot to be said for a technology that allows people to keep in touch and to share their life experiences and interests in sports, music and much more. Yes, social media can bring people together, and, as we have seen in a wider political and societal context, social media can help drive people apart, into their own worlds of like interests of politics or hate.
Online social media, however, cannot take the place of social responsibility IRL (in real life).
The lure of RTs (retweets) and shares shouldn’t obscure the basic principle of helping someone who needs help, such as someone who has been shot or beaten. Even if someone sees a crime and doesn’t call the police, he or she should at least have a thought for the victim and act accordingly.
The Magruder incident isn’t an isolated occurrence. In another case, 11 people witnessed an assault in Silver Spring, and not one called the police or even stuck around to tell what they had seen. If someone has been shot, stabbed or beaten and is fighting for life, the least anyone could do is punch three digits on a phone. Emergency calls are anonymous, so the person calling isn’t in any danger.
It could be that we need better tools that make it easier for people to report crimes. We can look into video tip lines. Through text, an app or a website, someone could forward, anonymously, video of an incident. We could do this in real time or with a recorded video.
Even though we wouldn’t know who is sending it, video could help investigators looking into a crime determine crucial facts. And, of course, if done in real time, it could save someone’s life. As we strive to improve our 911 system by implementing Next Generation 911, we hope to accomplish those opportunities.
Would anyone use a video tip line? Perhaps, perhaps not, but we need to give people every option we can to do the right thing. We know some people don’t like the police and don’t want to help the police. We know we have a lot of work to do. We work every day to establish better relations with the people in our community.
What we’re talking about here, however, is a much more basic issue of responsibility, personal and to society. This is a discussion that I hope teachers will have with their students and that adults should have as well.
How is it that people can watch a shooting or beating or stabbing and not do anything for the person being attacked? Even if you don’t know first aid, even if you don’t want to call the police, at least tell someone who can help. Even better, students or others can prevent tragedy if they warn school security or law enforcement if they know someone has a weapon.
This isn’t about betraying friends or snitching. It’s about a responsibility to your neighborhood, your community or simply the health and safety of another person.