SCHOOL PAYS STUDENTS FOR TIPS ON GUNS, DRUGS

EUGENE - A Salem, Ore., high-school principal has hit on a way of finding
students who brings guns to schools: He pays informants.

The May 21 shootings at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., which
left two students dead and 20 wounded, has given new impetus to efforts by
educators to keep firearms off campus.

"If somebody would have been enticed to turn in this Kinkel kid, they would
have saved lives." said Rey Mayoral, the Salem principal.

Kip Kinkel, the suspect in the Thurston High shootings, reportedly bought a
.22-caliber pistol at school last fall and didn't get caught.

Mayoral, who serves on a state juvenile task force, pays students $30 for
information about a weapon. A drug tip garners $20 and vandalism $10.

Students are paid after each crime is confirmed. An average of $600 a year
is paid under the school program, which has been in operation for three years.

The tipsters' identities are kept secret. If administrators can't get to the
bottom of a crime without exposing the source of the information, they drop
the investigation.

Congress passed a tough law against guns at school in 1994. The Oregon
Legislature followed in 1995 with a law requiring a one-year expulsion for
almost every student caught with a weapon.

A juvenile caught with a handgun could spend a year in lockup. If the
juvenile is caught with the gun at school, the penalty could be a five-year
sentence.

But the courts don't usually hand out major punishment for first-time offenders.

"We have a felony on the books, and we treat it like a traffic violation or
something," said John Walley, whose 16-year-old son, Jesse, was injured in
the Thurston shootings.

The number of Oregon teens arrested for carrying deadly weapons of all types
doubled within 10 years.

Eighty-five Oregon students were caught with guns at school and expelled in
the 1996-97 school year, according to a recent state report.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett