Today a story was released here in New Zealand that shows you the quality of young people in this country. A cool headed young woman, Tarryn Pitzer of Waiuku, aged 16, a volunteer counsellor on a teen help web site, was online with a teen in trouble in the states.
She kept her cool, but realized there was a potentially disastrous problem. When the 15 year old teen from the state of Pennsylvania she was chatting with said that he hated his schoolmates and would like to shoot them, as others had done in schools in the US, she took action.
She alerted her local police station, and Constable Johnny Rei arranged for the station to fax Interpol while he went to Tarryn's house. Once there he got her to continue the conversation without changing her tone, which she did. She managed to obtain enough information from the disturbed youth to enable the US FBI to find the young man. He has since been detained and has been assessed as being a potential "school yard shooter". He is now suspended from school but is receiving help with his problems.
Did that take a cool head? You bet it did, and the courage to act when Tarryn saw potential trouble on the horizon. It would have been very easy to simply dismiss it as the ramblings of a teenager having a bad day, but Tarryn took it on herself to act instead of just setting and doing nothing. She has, undoubtedly, assisted in preventing yet another schoolyard tragedy.
So I say Thank You Tarryn for a job well done. You are a young woman of courage, and deserving of such praise. May others follow your example and learn that it isn't such a big world after all, and that your neighbor is now not only next door, but half way across the world. And on top of that, that one person "can" make a difference. You did, and you may well have saved the lives of many others. Thank you for your forthright action. Keep up the good work.
Just my musings...
Mac
