Violence Week

Big News: Violence Week has been nominated for a Webby Award for Best Indie Podcast — Limited Series. The Webby Awards is the Internet’s most respected symbol of success and winning one means more recognition for indie podcasts like ours.

In the final episode of Violence Week, we return for one final dramatic school board meeting to discover whether police will return to the high school. Along the way, we meet with community organizers and the President of the School Board to understand what stopped the fights at East Lansing High and reflect on what this story illuminates about violence prevention.

In the world's most heavily-armed country, can anything actually make schools safe from gun violence? Can police prevent school shootings? And why are officers stations in schools to begin with? To explore these tough questions, Emily attends a School Resource Officer training and sits down with a school safety expert.

As her hometown wrestles with the role of police in schools, Emily is reminded of a controversial incident from her days at East Lansing High School.

In this episode, she takes us to meet her old classmate Marcus, who was tased by the school's police officer nearly thirteen years ago, to finally learn the truth about what happened.

And in the middle of this heated community debate over school safety, a shocking event unfolds—raising the stakes for East Lansing's decision.

Producer and host Emily Reeves returns to her old high school in East Lansing, Michigan, where the discovery of a gun ignited intense fears of school shootings and a fierce debate over policing in schools.