School Bells: Ringing the Alarm on School Safety
/By: Joel E. Gordon
The deadly school shooting in Georgia is currently leading to sincere discussions in the City of Baltimore, with the incident bringing up a recurring argument over whether to arm police resource officers inside city schools.
The discussion brought to the forefront after two armed resource officers at Apalachee High School in Georgia are being praised for their quick action in helping to stop the shooter. Officials say that within 120 seconds of the first shot being fired, the officers were able to find and take the suspect into custody. Great work indeed.
Regarding the issue of arming school police in Baltimore, Sgt. Clyde Boatwright said the choice is clear. "It strikes me that we're one incident away from saying, we shoulda, coulda, woulda."
"These type of situations are happening across the county and we just don't want to be on the wrong side of history and have a situation where a police officer could've taken corrective action and did not have the tools available to do so," said Boatwright.
Under Maryland law, school resource officers must lock-up their guns at the start of their shifts retrieving them only when “needed.” But Baltimore city school resource officers are the only police officers in the state who cannot carry weapons inside of schools and Boatwright is ringing the alarm.
"I will say Baltimore City Schools has done an amazing job with the technology that city schools have invested in. But still, all that technology is great but you still need an armed police officer if you have a scenario where a person has evaded those preventive measures and begin to actively shoot."
As a point of reference, Baltimore school officers have recovered at least 15 guns at city schools each year for the last four years.
Further exasperating issues in Maryland are limits under current Maryland law which restrict investigations once a shooting incident occurs or with any crime involving a juvenile suspect. Just after a deadly school shooting occurred at a Harford County Maryland school, Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler expressed his frustration over the limits his investigation could take.
"We have a person charged as an adult for committing a heinous crime in a school and we're not allowed to talk to him. That is lunacy," said Sheriff Gahler.
Maryland's Child Interrogation Protection Act, passed by the legislature two years ago, bars police or prosecutors from interviewing juveniles without the consent of an attorney. Proponents insist the new law protects the constitutional rights of juveniles but law enforcement has rightly maintained it stands in the way of justice.
"Even if a parent says 'yes' you can talk to my son or daughter, a lawyer is saying 'you can't talk to my client'," said Baltimore City State's Attorney Ivan Bates.
"It's becoming more and more difficult to hold juveniles accountable," said Prince Georges County Maryland Executive Angela Alsobrooks.
In Harford County there are many questions following the school shooting with few answers. "With our criminal-friendly legislature in Maryland, this is a 16-year-old suspect and we are not allowed to talk to him," said Sheriff Gahler.
The safety of school campuses is not limited to any setting or geographical location. As I write this, my local high school in rural West Virginia is being evacuated with students being dismissed early due to detailed social media posts threatening an allegedly impending shooting. Federal, State and local law enforcement here are currently actively engaged in the investigation to make certain that anyone responsible for criminal activity is held accountable.
School administrators, local governments, law enforcement, and Emergency Medical Services must all work together in unison to keep abreast of and implement best practices for school security and incident response. After each incident those same entities must perform comprehensive after action reviews to work on any improvements needed in future incident prevention and response. Continual learning and improvements must be achieved.
It’s long past time to end this violence and do everything possible to keep our communities and schools as safe as possible. Remember, soft targets in gun-free zones prohibit “bad guys,” often with guns and evil intent, from being able to be neutralized by the “good guys” with guns. Time is of the essence; it’s past time to have the right policies and actionable plans in place and stop the insanity.
Joel E. Gordon, Managing Editor of BLUE Magazine, is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com
