Warning Signals from DISTURBED YOUTH.

• Author: MINER, NANCY B.

Deliberate cruelty to animals has been demonstrated to be a predictive forerunner to violence against humans.

ON OCT. 1, 1997, in Pearl, Miss., 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death, then took a rifle to school, where he shot nine students, killing two.

On Dec. 1, 1997, in Paducah, Ky., 14-year-old Michael Carneal took a stolen arsenal of four shotguns, two rifles, a pistol, and more than 700 rounds of ammunition to school, where he gunned down eight classmates at a prayer circle, killing three.

On March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, Ark., 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson set off a fire alarm in the school they attended, then opened fire on students and teachers pouring out of the building, killing five and wounding 10.

On May 21, 1998, in Springfield, Ore., 15-year-old Kipland Kinkel murdered both his parents, then took a rifle and two handguns to school and fired upon a crowd of students in the cafeteria, wounding 22 and killing two.

On Apr. 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colo., as the culmination of more than a year of planning, 17-year-old Dylan Klebold and 18-year-old Eric Harris used a stockpile of pipe bombs and guns to massacre 12 classmates and a teacher and wound 23 before killing themselves.

Although the incidence of school violence is dropping, its severity is escalating. Following the Jonesboro shooting, Pres. Clinton ordered Attorney General Janet Reno to establish a task force to look for links among the school shootings and explore ways of averting such tragedies in the future. That was a full year prior to the slaughter in Littleton.

Although few people are aware of it, that link already exists. The nexus--and the warning signal that could have saved more than two dozen lives had it been recognized as such--is one which Clinton, Reno, and hundreds of educators, law enforcement officials, and other experts have repeatedly ignored. It is the powerful connection between cruelty to animals and human violence, a well-documented phenomenon researchers call "The Link." In all the shootings, the young gunmen were widely known to have committed--even boasted about--acts of animal cruelty.

In his journal, Woodham gave a chilling description of the way in which he and a friend killed his dog by beating her with baseball bats, dousing her with gasoline, setting her on fire, and then tossing her body into a pond. "I made my first kill today," Woodham wrote. "It was a loved one.... I'll never forget the howl...