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K-12 school districts and institutions of higher education continue to invest in a wide range of security and safety technologies.

In Atlanta, Georgia, four Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in Atlanta — Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, and the Atlanta University Center Consortium – are in the process of upgrading security on campus.

Those improvements include unified alert systems, better lighting, and adding speed bumps, reports 11Alive. Morehouse is also updating its call boxes and adding 10 new officers. Morehouse College PD Chief Charles Prescott said his department has already added license plate readers and 17 new officers.

The upgrades at the HBCUs were partially prompted by the shooting of a Clark Atlanta University student in February, but it’s not just institutions of higher education that are responding to the recent rise in gun violence with increased investments in security technology. Many K-12 school districts are now investing in weapons detection systems.

In Texas, Garrett multi-zone metal detectors have been added to 31 schools in the Laredo Independent School District (LISD). These machines have been added to all elementary, middle, and high school campuses as part of LISD’s proactive approach to school security.

The detectors being deployed can be programmed to detect not only guns and similar threat objects, but also the knives and vape pens that some other mass screening technologies with low detection capabilities fail to find.

“We are taking action, so there’s a lot of investment on behalf of our school district, not only with purchasing the equipment, but with the training as well,” said Oscar Perez, Executive Director of Health and Safety for LISD.  

In Maryland, Charles County Public Schools (CCPS) have selected Omnilert’s Gun Detect active shooter solution to monitor external cameras throughout CCPS campuses. CCPS has already begun installing the system with outside building cameras and plans to have it activated systemwide by the end of the current school year.

“This technology provides real-time detection and advance warning before a situation occurs, which provides our school officials with valuable time to react to a possible safety threat,” said Jason Stoddard, CCPS director of school safety and security.

HVAC systems at schools across the country are also getting some much needed attention, thanks to grants provided by the federal government.

For example, in North Carolina, Rockingham County Schools, allocated $12 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding towards addressing HVAC deferred maintenance. In a two-phased approach, Johnson Controls replaced and installed heat pumps at select schools as well as upgraded the district-wide Metasys digital controls.

“The federal funding made available to school districts is a one-time opportunity, so it’s critical that K-12 leaders take the time to maximize these dollars to the fullest,” said Erselle Young, assistant superintendent of operations and logistics at Rockingham County Schools.

Article Source: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/news/college-campuses-school-districts-pgrade-security-safety-systems/

The University of Arizona released a campus safety and security report that outlines a series of failures that ultimately led to the Oct. 2022 fatal shooting of professor Thomas Meixner, according to UA President Robert Robbins.

During a March 27 press conference to address the findings and answer media questions, Robbins said the report “reveals there were systemic issues across our university that should have been identified and corrected,” reports The Tucson Sentinel. Dr. Thomas Meixner, professor and head of the school’s department of hydrology and atmospheric sciences, was shot by a former student on Oct. 5. Meixner was taken to a local hospital immediately after the shooting where he was pronounced deceased.

The suspect, 46-year-old Murad Dervish, fled the scene but was apprehended several hours later by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. Dervish, who campus officials knew had a violent criminal record and was barred from the campus beginning in early 2022, had been sending Meixner and others distressing messages for months, reports Tucson.com. The victims made several attempts to report his behavior to numerous university departments, including the Office of General Counsel, the UA Police Department (UAPD) the Office of Institutional Equity, and the Dean of Students.

The new report, written by security consulting firm PAX Group following an independent review of the weeks and months leading up to the shooting, as well as the university’s response in its aftermath, identified three main themes as being in need of improvement, including: 1) Understanding and managing threats; 2) Providing a consistent, empathetic and compassionate response; and 3) The decentralization and breakdown of communications. It also outlines four main areas of failure across multiple departments, including the Threat Assessment Management Team, Crisis Response, the UA Police Department, and Communications.

Threat Assessment, Management Team Failures

The report found the Threat Assessment Management Team (TATM) was run inefficiently, leading to multiple opportunities for the shooter to continue to harass and threaten UA community members, according to The Daily Wildcat. It also led to organizational stress on administrative entities such as the Dean of Students and the Office of the General Counsel. The TATM did not have a full-time leader, dedicated support, or formalized meetings and reviews. UAPD and the Dean of Students were both responsible for leading the TAMT but neither department was equipped to effectively assess and manage threats along with other departmental duties, the report found.

Crisis Response Failures

Failures were also found in the school’s crisis response, determining drills and emergency training was not prioritized by senior leadership, and Emergency Response Plans for each department were encouraged but not mandated by senior leadership. Emergency response was found to be inconsistent across departments, further fracturing responses to threats and harassment. There were also inconsistencies in the understanding of risk, what is considered to be a threat, and what should be deemed concerning.

“Without consistent, dedicated crisis response, the University is forced to move from crisis to crisis, which results in overwhelmed assessment and response teams and continued misunderstandings between involved parties,” the report reads.

UA Police Department Failures

The report also outlines many faults in law enforcement’s response to the shooter’s behavior before the attack, finding there were “multiple missed opportunities by UAPD to engage, disrupt, or arrest [Dervish] prior to the incident.” It identified multiple violations of the terms of the shooter’s expulsion that could have resulted in his arrest, including trespassing on campus and messaging faculty members.

The report further identified a disconnect between the Tucson Police Department and UAPD. Prior to the shooting, Tucson Police received a tip from a handgun dealer who refused to sell Dervish a gun because he said he was going to use it to kill himself and others. UAPD did not know of the tip until after Meixner’s murder. Additionally, the report found the Pima County Constables’ Office failed to serve Dervish with an order of protection filed by a faculty member.

Emergency Communication Failures

The report identified flaws in how the school communicates internally and with the community, including issues with the UAlert system. Many students and staff did not receive alerts following the shooting due to subscription errors. PAX Group noted that within the university’s email system, “mass emails are often identified as spam on the university’s server,” resulting in a “5-15 minute buffer or delay before the system could identify the mass UAlert email as not spam.” At the press conference, Robbins said he was in Washington, D.C. during the shooting and did not receive an alert himself due to issues with his subscription.“I didn’t renew [the UAlert subscription] in a timely manner so I was eliminated from the list,” he said.

Following the shooting, UA Chief of Police Paula Balafas said the incident was something “you can’t even predict,” indicating she was not properly informed of the complaints against the shooter and the multiple violations of his expulsion. The report indicated her statement “angered those who had been asked UAPD to arrest the Subject for nearly one year.”

The report also lists 33 recommendations for improving campus safety, including a dedicated president of the TATM, expanding safety training to individuals and units, automatically registering all students and staff to receive campus alerts, improved interagency cooperation, a centralized security camera policy, installing fire and safety-compliant locks on classroom doors, expanding keyless access to buildings, and running criminal background checks on graduate students.

The UA will also enlist former FBI agent Steve Patterson as an interim chief safety officer, create a commission devoted to campus safety, and create a campus-wide master facility safety plan with support from PAX Group.

“I am angry at myself that I did not do more to prevent this tragedy,” Robbins said during the press conference. “I’m determined to honor Tom Meixner’s legacy by making any and all necessary changes to keep our campus safer.”

On the same day as Robbins’ press conference, the UA Faculty Senate voted 29-13 to approve a written motion against Robbins, as well as Balafas, Chief Financial Officer Lisa Rulney, General Counsel Laura Todd Johnson, Dean of Students Kendal Washington White, and Provost Liesl Folks.

On March 24, lawyers representing Meixner’s family filed a notice of claim with the Arizona Board of Regents, arguing UA “sacrificed Professor Tom Meixner’s life, repeatedly ignoring the clear and present danger of a hostile and dangerous student who openly advertised his intent to murder,” according to The Tucson Sentinel. The lawsuit will seek $9 million.

Article Source: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/university/university-of-arizona-report-outlines-failures-surrounding-fatal-shooting-of-professor/

Photo Credit: Arizona Public Media

Three children and three adults were shot and killed at a private Christian school in Nashville. The suspected shooter is also dead.

The shooting happened just before 10:30 a.m. Monday morning at The Covenant School, which serves around 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, reports Reuters. Three children were pronounced dead after arriving at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, said spokesperson John Howser. The hospital later confirmed three adults died.

The three students who died have been identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, Hallie Scruggs, 9, and William Kinney, 9. The adult victims are substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; school head Katherine Koonce, 60; and custodian Mike Hill, 61, reports NBC News.

The shooter, originally described as a 28-year-old Nashville woman, was later identified as Audrey Hale, a transgender man who went by the name Aiden.

Authorities said as the first five Metropolitan Nashville Police officers arrived, the shooter, who was once a student at the school, fired at their vehicles through a second-floor window. Two officers then entered the building and opened fire, killing Hale, who was reportedly carrying two assault-type rifles and a handgun, according to Fox News.

Police first received calls about a shooting at 10:13 a.m. and the suspect was deceased by 10:27 a.m. Special agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the scene of the shooting and are assisting local first responders.

Metro Fire spokesperson Kendra Loney said firefighters helped escort children out of the school. Students and staff were bussed to nearby Woodmont Baptist Church where they were reunited with family. Mental health specialists and professionals were made available.

Killer Shot Through Glass of Locked Door, Had Manifesto

MNPD spokesperson Don Aaron said the killer entered the building by shooting out the glass of a locked door on the first floor.

A detailed map of Covenant School was in the shooter’s manifesto, which was discovered by police after the attack. The manifesto included surveillance and access points of the building. The shooter also targeted another location but chose not to attack the second target because of security at that location, reports Newsweek.

At 9:57 a.m., Hale sent an Instagram message to childhood teammate Averianna Patton, stating he planned to die by suicide and it would be on the news.

“One day this will make more sense,” Hale wrote. “I’ve left behind more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen.”

Patton told WTVF she “tried to comfort and encourage [Hale] and subsequently reached out to the Suicide Prevention Help Line after being instructed to by my father at 10:08 a.m.” She also called the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office at 10:13 a.m. — the exact time police received the first call of an active shooter — and was told to call Nashville’s non-emergency number.

Patton said she called the non-emergency line at 10:14 a.m. but was on hold for seven minutes before speaking with someone who said they would send an officer to her home. Patton said an officer did not come to her residence until 3:29 p.m.

According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, this incident is the 89th shooting on school grounds in 2023. The attack was the 19th shooting at a U.S. school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, CNN reports.

Article Source: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/3-children-3-adults-killed-in-nashville-school-shooting/

Photo Credit: facebook.com/MetroNashvillePoliceDepartment

A Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School student was shot and killed on campus Friday afternoon.

Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) said the shooting happened around 2:53 p.m. during dismissal, reports CBS News. The victim, 17-year-old Jeremiah Brogden, was confronted in the parking lot by a student from another Baltimore City school. Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the confrontation became “heated” and the suspect fired multiple shots.

Baltimore City School Police officers who were outside chased down the suspect and apprehended him. Officers performed CPR on Brogden. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital and pronounced dead at 3:26 p.m.

The 17-year-old suspect has been formally charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail at a Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services facility.

Sergeant Clyde Boatwright, president of the Maryland State Fraternal Order of Police, said the school police officers were armed and that they retrieved the suspect’s weapon, according to The Baltimore Sun. He said city school police officers cannot be armed during the school day, but because the shooting took place after dismissal, the officers had their weapons.

BCPS CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises praised the officers’ response.

“What is important for families to know is that the school safety plan was in place,” she said. “It was because of the swift action of our Baltimore City Public School police officers that the suspect was apprehended within seconds of the incident.”

Cristina Duncan Evans, the Baltimore Teachers union teacher chair, said educators need more support.

“We need to prepare and equip staff not just to process their own trauma but to also be a resource to students who may have witnessed a violent incident,” she said.

Santelises said counselors would be available this week for students and school staff.

Anyone with information about the incident should call Metro Crime Stoppers at 866-756-2587.

Police Commissioner, Mayor Condone Baltimore Gun Violence

Commissioner Harrison said easy access to guns and “the willingness to use them just to solve conflict” is a common problem in Baltimore City.  

“This is conflict resolution, or the failure to solve conflict in a peaceful, sensible way, but rather someone using a gun that they are not allowed to have in the first place to solve their conflict and take out their anger on someone else,” he said. “And now the community is at a loss.”

Several other violent incidents occurred at Baltimore schools last school year. Last February, a 16-year-old student was injured in a shooting in a parking lot at Catonsville High School. Last March, an 18-year-old was shot outside Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. Toward the end of the school year, two Mervo students were stabbed by a classmate at lunch.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott urged members of the community to get more involved in the lives of young people.

“Get up, get out there, get involved, get off your a** and get involved with these young people,” he said. “We can’t keep seeing this over and over and over again. There are too many young people that are being harmed in our city, but there are also so many others that are out there just waiting for someone to care for them, to show them a better way, to help them grow into the best version of themselves.”

Article Source: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/mervo-high-school-student-fatally-shot/

Photo Credit: @BaltimorePolice Twitter

Officials said the gunman entered the school unobstructed and that he was barricaded inside a classroom for nearly an hour-and-a-half before being killed.

In a press conference held around 9 a.m. local time on Friday, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw released an updated sequence of events and said the classroom should have been immediately breached by law enforcement.

McCraw said nearly 20 officers were outside of the classroom where the gunman was for more than 45 minutes before agents used a master key to open the door and confront the gunman. The on-site commander, who McCraw identified as the school district’s chief of police, believed the gunman was barricaded in a classroom and that the children were not at risk, reports The Associated Press.

“Where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that,” McCraw said. “But again, I wasn’t there.”

“We believe there should have been an entry as soon as you can,” McCraw continued. “When there’s an active shooter, the rules change.”

McCraw also revealed an updated sequence of events. At 11:27 a.m., a teacher propped open the exterior door that the shooter entered through, according to video evidence. One minute later, the gunman crashed his vehicle in the ditch next to the school. Two men went to help and the gunman shot at them.

The teacher who propped open the door heard the commotion and ran to retrieve a phone and walked back to the door which remained propped open. The teacher called 911 at 11:30 a.m. A minute later, the gunman started walking in the school parking lot and shooting into classroom windows. At the same time, patrol cars arrived at the crash site.

At 11:33 a.m., the gunman entered the school and began shooting into a classroom. By 11:35 a.m., seven officers were on the scene and two of them were shot near the classroom door. The gunman then continued to fire inside the classroom with the door closed and locked.

“We do know that he shot more than 100 rounds based on the audio evidence at that time,” McCraw confirmed. “At least 100 rounds.”

The backup and tactical team did not arrive on the scene to make entry into the classroom until 12:57 p.m., he added. At 12:58 p.m., nearly an hour and a half after the gunman entered the school, it was confirmed over law enforcement radio that the gunman had been killed.

ORIGINAL POST 9:46 A.M. — The gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday was not confronted by police before he entered the school, contradicting earlier comments made by officials and raising questions about law enforcement response.

“He walked in unobstructed initially,” Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Victor Escalon said Thursday. “So from the grandmother’s house, to the (ditch), to the school, into the school, he was not confronted by anybody.”

The day prior, a DPS representative said a school resource officer had “engaged” with the shooter before he went into the school, reports CNN.

Escalon’s contradictory statement was made during a news conference and has raised questions regarding the timeline of the shooting and officers’ response. During Thursday’s conference, Escalon said the gunman shot his grandmother and then crashed his truck in a ditch outside the school at 11:28 a.m.  He exited the truck armed with a rifle and shot at two people across the street.

The shooter then approached the school and shot at the building multiple times before walking in through an unlocked door at 11:40 a.m., Escalon said. There was no school resource officer on-site or available at the time, he added. The district has four police officers, including a chief, detective, and two officers. It also employs additional security staff who patrol door entrances, parking lots, and campus perimeters.

Officers arrived on the scene at 11:44 a.m. When they confronted the gunman, he fired at them and they took cover, Escalon continued. Three law enforcement officers went in the same door the shooter used and four went through another entrance, said DPS spokesperson Chris Olivarez. Officers called for more resources and personnel, evacuated students and teachers in other parts of the school, and eventually entered negotiations with the suspect, according to Escalon.

Gunman Inside School for Almost an Hour Before Being Killed

Olivarez said Thursday morning that the suspect had barricaded himself in a classroom that was attached to an adjoining room. He said all of the 21 killed and 17 injured were inside those classrooms which corroborates statements made by officials Wednesday.

“We’re still trying to establish if that classroom was locked, and if it was locked, was there some type of barricade, was there some type of locking mechanism that did not allow those officers to make entry,” he added.

The shooter was locked inside the classroom with the victims for nearly an hour. “Numerous” police officers had assembled just outside the room, authorities said, but did not make any attempt to break through the door, according to The Guardian. They waited until the US Border Patrol tactical team arrived.

“The bottom line is law enforcement was there,” said McCraw. “They did engage immediately. They did contain (the shooter) in the classroom.”

A law enforcement official who spoke to AP News on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation said Border Patrol agents had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a key from a staff member.

The public and victims’ families are demanding answers regarding why the gunman was able to remain in the classroom for an hour. As parents and other locals arrived at the active scene, some confronted officers, asking why they weren’t entering the building. One father, whose son survived, reportedly asked a law enforcement officer for gear.

“I told one of the officers myself, if they didn’t want to go in there, let me borrow his gun and a vest and I’ll go in there myself to handle it, and they told me no,” he told CNN.

Juan Carranza, who lives next to the school, told The Associated Press he witnessed women shouting at officers, “Go in there! Go in there!”

Javier Cazares, whose 10-year-old daughter Jacklyn was killed, said police appeared unprepared and that he and other residents who had gathered outside the school started to make their own plans for entering the school.

“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” he said.

When Escalon was asked whether the police officers could have broken into the classroom sooner, he said, “Could anyone have gone [into the classroom] sooner? You have to understand, this is a small town.”

“There are a lot of possibilities,” he continued. “There were numerous officers at that classroom. Once we interview all those officers, we’ll have a better idea.”

Source: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/texas-law-enforcement-scrutinized-response-uvalde-school-shooting/