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Taft shooter identified, charged as adult, ominous warnings downplayed

Tweets suggest school officials were aware of danger beforehand.


The young man who critically wounded another student in a shooting at Taft Union High School has been identified at 16-year-old Bryan Oliver. The Kern County District Attorney has announced that Oliver will be tried as an adult. His victim has also been identified.

Shooting suspect, Bryan Oliver will be tried as an adult.

Shooting suspect, Bryan Oliver will be tried as an adult.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Bryan Oliver was clearly a troubled teen. Reports say he was smaller than most kids his age and he endured teasing and bullying to the point he began to crack under the strain during his freshman year.

Friends of Oliver say he was called a "ginger" for having red hair, and told that "gingers have no souls." This teasing may have been what triggered his singular act of violence that left one student in critical condition.

Fellow students and parents complained on Twitter that Oliver had compiled a hit list of students he would target if he went on a shooting rampage. That list was discovered by school officials last year and Oliver was disciplined with a 5-day suspension, but then permitted to return to school where he was undoubtedly subjected to further bullying.

Other students even claimed that Oliver checked out a book on how to commit a murder, although the book, if it exists, has not been identified.

Last month, weeks before the shooting, students at the school raised another alarm, one that was apparently dismissed by school officials. According to Twitter posts made by students in December, Oliver threatened "to shoot up the school."

One person tweeted "And he always talks about murder like he's obsessed with it."

To be clear, much of this new information has been aggregated from Twitter sources, so it comes with a caveat, but several independent tweets exist, reflecting the same information. Taken together, there is little doubt as to the veracity of the claims.

Speaking in official capacity, authorities have thus far refused to confirm much of this information.

Today Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green did refer to Bryan Oliver by name and announced that he would be charged as an adult with two counts of attempted murder and three counts of assault with a firearm.

Meanwhile Oliver's victim remains in critical condition in the hospital, however doctors are describing him as "very lucky" and say they expect him to survive.

The victim has been identified on Twitter as 16-year-old Bowe Cleveland, a well-liked basketball player. Despite his popularity among other students, authorities say that Oliver felt he was being bullied by Cleveland. Those claims have not been substantiated.

In one particularly worrisome tweet, a fellow student said, "yeah he told Bowe that he watched 5 serial killer movies and thought of Bowie the whole time. [Expletive.] Creepy."

Student's Twitter feeds even suggest they were called into the office for questioning about their ominous tweets even before the shooting took place. "Maybe Angelo should've taken me more serious when I got called in because of mine and @b--'s tweets." The name Angelo refers to the school's assistant principal, Rona Angelo.

Another student was not so easy on the administrator tweeting, Bryan Oiliver's [sic] a [expletives redacted]. So is Angelo. How many times did I call this out? HOW MANY TIMES [expletive].

The fact that school officials may have had warning does not bode well for the administration which appears as though it could become the subject of civil action in the incident.

As for Oliver, he will likely face a very long prison term of at least 25 years, despite his age. Having acted out because of bullying, he now faces long years in prison -- where professional bullies live.

© 2013, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention:
The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Bryan Oliver, Twitter, Taft, shooting, Adult, Ryan Heber, Bowe Cleveland

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1 - 1 of 1 Comments

  1. Cindy
    4 months ago

    The sad part about all of this goes back to a testament that began when God was taken out of public schools, then our government, and now the average home in America - the of which was founded on Godly principles - is now reaping what it has sown.
    We've already become a land, not unlike that of Sodom & Gomorrah, where they exchanged right for wrong, perverted the natural for the unnatural, and became a feel good society - If it feels good, just do it!
    Teens of all ages have watched all of this for many decades now from their adult parents, teachers, and leaders - exchanging right for wrong because they had a position of power in which they thought made them invincible and unreproachable. Again, not unlike that of the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah.
    It is so true that "Children Learn What They Live." Monkey see, monkey do! That now includes, pornagraphy, lifestyles which have been been given over to exchanging the natural for the unnnatural, and where they are being taught tolerance in all situations, which really doesn't even come close to what real tolerance should look like as given by example from the Holy Bible where we are taught that we must "love the sinner, but hate the sin." That's what real tolerance means.
    The opposite of that has therefore become perverted as well because the origins of where those rules were taught, The Holy Bible, and living by the original precepts that we are to live by lie therein, have become twisted and perverted and thrown into the heap of society's trash pile, which is fast becoming a cesspool that is taking things like, forthrightness, a virtuous and honest lifestyle, unconditional love, right relationship with our Maker, helping our fellow man just because it is the right thing to do, because that is what God has tried to teach us to do through His Holy Word. Then throwing it all into the gutter, where truth and goodness, and righteous living all gets washed away into the growing cesspool of desiring to "have it OUR WAY, and where the truth may never again be found in its original form.
    And we wonder why there is so much chaos, sin and degredation all around us, around the world as things continue to spiral out of control.
    I can only pray that our Sovereign and Merciful God will give us one more chance to win more souls over to the side of righteousness and truth, and that we can trun this mess around so that young men and women, like the one in the above article, can have a chance to get it right because they had the right examples given to them from the socity in which they must live.
    So it's no wonder kids continue to bully and mistreat one another to the point of exchanging right for wrong, rather than love and forgiveness, as is taught thoughout scripture.
    "God please help us!" This is my plea and fervent prayer. Amen.

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