Sometimes the worst turns out to be the truth

A little over a month ago I posted about one of the "good kids" at my school whose mother was brutally murdered. READ HERE I was torn at the time about how to feel about it.  Sorrow and empathy for the young man whose mother was the victim of a random violent crime, or horror that he might have done it and that it was quite the opposite of random.  My worst nightmare has come true.

Although the intent of this blog is to express my feelings without revealing my geographic location, name, and especially no identifying information about any student or my school, this story has now become national news.  I will continue to blog here on this personal forum, because it is my right to do so. I will not, however, confirm any information about my identity, my school and especially no information about students.

I have used the alias "Ahmed" to refer to the student whose mother was murdered.  As it turns out, Ahmed is responsible for the murder.  He was arrested this past week in what has become a very public murder case.  Not only because of the horror of murdering one's own mother, but because, as it turns out, he paid a classmate to commit the crime.  The murderer in this case was another student from my school.  Fortunately, a student I'm not well-acquainted with, but that doesn't make it any less gruesome.

The revelation of this information was initially rather anticlimactic for me.  In many ways I had mentally prepared myself that Ahmed might have done it.  I wasn't really prepared for all of the facts that have been unraveling throughout the past week.  (note: all of the follow facts are public knowledge that has appeared on TV and print media, I'm not revealing any confidential information)

The murder was committed for-hire for a paltry sum of money.  The victim was stabbed dozens of times.  Following the murder, Ahmed returned to campus and very nonchalantly walked the halls, joked with friends, posted on Facebook, texted friends on his cell, and behaved as if it were any normal day.  The case was only cracked when the hired killer made the mistake of committing a drug offense and was taken into custody for this offense.  At this point, various puzzle pieces began to come together for the police.

As the week progressed and the student body got word of what happened, sorrow, anger and other strong feelings came over many students.  We provided counseling services to students and teachers who had contact with the two young men, the murderers.

Finally, I think sometime on Thursday evening, it really hit me what a betrayal that this was.  How could someone that I trusted do something so horrible?  By no means did I know him extremely well, but I knew him well enough to have made at least a moderate character judgment based on my interactions as well as the experiences of others who had known him for many, many years.

In my initial post, I stated that if it turned out to be true that Ahmed committed this heinous crime, that I would question my ability to judge character.  That's exactly what has happened, but the net result of that is still unknown for me.  People always say things like "ya never know..." when it comes to situations like this.  In the future, I hope to know better and to know that my first instincts are most definitely not above questioning.

I'm ready for this to be a closed chapter, but I feel that it's a long way from that.  I'm sure that the trial will be months or years away and that no matter how much I'd like it to be a part of the distant past, that this case has changed and modified the way I think about students.  That being said, I know that 99.99999999% (hopefully more!) of teens would never even consider such an act.  Betrayal of trust is what most of the students and teachers at school have felt, in conjunction with their horror.  I think I feel the same way.

It's time to work hard to move on to educating students and to meeting the needs of all of my 500+ other students, knowing that we will all be stronger as a result of our experiences.  Those of you who are also working in the education field, I trust that you will join me in trudging forward as troopers, working hard to teach, to educate and to develop children into competent, responsible, well-educated adults who are prepared to be productive and moral people in the real world.

Thanks for reading.