    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
    [June 13, 1998]
    [Pages 959-960]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Departure for Springfield, Oregon, and an Exchange With
    Reporters in Portland
    June 13, 1998

        The President. Good afternoon. Several days ago, Senator
    Wyden got in touch with me and told me that the
    principal and the superintendent of
    Springfield would like for me to come down and
    visit with the people there while I am in Oregon. And I'm going because
    I want to listen; I want to learn; I want to be of whatever support I
    can. I also want to highlight the importance to all Americans of trying
    to prevent tragedies like this.
        I have today instructed the Secretary of Education and the Attorney
    General to prepare a guide for teachers, educators, parents, and others,
    that basically goes through the early warning signals that so many young
    people who are likely to take very violent destructive action often
    give, in the hope that it will help the schools and the families, and
    even other students to pick up such signals so that we can prevent these
    things in the future. So, for both those reasons, I'm going down, and
    I'm looking forward to it. And I'd like to thank the Senators and the two Representatives for going
    with me. I'm very much looking forward to it.
        Q. Mr. President, what will you tell the families or the victims in
    Springfield this afternoon?
        The President. Well, I'll--first of all, I want to listen to them
    and not tell them too much. But I--what I will tell them is that I hope
    that one way they can honor their children is to work with us to try to
    create a country and a set of circumstances which makes it far less
    likely that these things will be repeated. And I would think that any
    parent would want to do that.

    [[Page 960]]

        Q. How much help do you think this guide will be, sir?
        The President. Well, I think it might be quite a bit. One of the
    things that, frankly, I must say, I was not aware of until I started
    studying the facts more closely, is that if you look at the Jonesboro
    case, the Kentucky case, the Mississippi case, the Pennsylvania case,
    some other cases where there were shootings but not killings, as well as
    the one here, in quite a number of the cases, there was some behavior on
    the part of the young people involved which indicated that they were--
    they might do something very out of the ordinary. Now, if you're not--if
    you can't--first of all, these kinds of things are almost unimaginable.
    So, unless you have some way of knowing that what kind of behavior
    should set off the biggest warning signal in your mind, and you have
    something constructive to do about it, you know, where you can take
    these children and what you can do. Normally, what happens is people are
    just disturbed, and then they go on with their lives until something
    terrible happens. So, I really believe there's a chance, if we can get
    this guide up, if we can get it widely discussed in our schools and
    people can talk about it not in a paranoid or negative way but just in a
    open way, that there's a good chance it will really do some good.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:24 p.m. at Portland International
    Airport. In his remarks, he referred to Larry Bentz, principal, Thurston
    High School, and Jamon Kent, superintendent, Springfield Public Schools.
    A tape was not available for verification of the content of these
    remarks.