Why on earth would this colorado school(of course it’s colorado) first fight with its sheriff’s department, then hire a private security team as an alternative solution. Demanding they be unarmed, asking if it would be cheaper to be unarmed, it doesn’t seem to have been. Then, when they actually had a mass killing attempt, which is crazy because they seldom ever even happen yet this school was scrambling for unarmed security, they complained about their security guard who was secretly armed and stopped one of the killers. This story is just off the walls. They don’t celebrate him stopping more carnage, they charge him for being armed. They vilify this man because he noticed a muzzle coming around the corner so he shot at the muzzle and that muzzle turned out to be the sheriff’s office who was supposed to originally have a resource officer there in the first place but didn’t because of that earlier dispute. I wonder if that dispute had anything to do with said officer being unarmed. What a crazy colorado story.
It does seem that an armed on site staff member shooting responding LEO is one of the concerns those who are against ‘guns in schools’ have, and he did no favors in that respect if he shot at a Sheriff Deputy
He was in the middle of trying to save the kids he was charged to protect and didn’t shoot any officers. That statement is incorrect. He did however stop one of the shooters. With his firearm that he had on him saving countless lives. The article reads that a student was injured by a round going through the wall and I question the origin of that round. This man saved lives by not disarming himself like he was told to even though he had the training and qualifications to be armed in that school. He went through the same training those responding sheriff’s went through. We was a sheriff’s deputy previous to being hired by this firm. Probably for more money.
What statement is incorrect?
Article says “while accidentally firing at a responding sheriff’s deputy.”
That one.
That statement reads:
“It does seem that an armed on site staff member shooting responding LEO is one of the concerns those who are against ‘guns in schools’ have”
I believe this statement is correct. Taking three words randomly out of the sentence out of context, completing changing the message of the statement, does not really speak to whether or not the statement is accurate
No one shot any LEO in this case
The article linked in the OP says the guard shot at responding LEO
“while accidentally firing at a responding sheriff’s deputy.”
Actually, if we expand a little, shot a student while shooting at the cop
“but court records indicate he shot and wounded an uninvolved student while accidentally firing at a responding sheriff’s deputy.”
Bit of a double-oof and, let’s be honest, didn’t do us a lot of favors in the argument that he should have been armed
The student was hit by a bullet that went through a wall. I question the origin of that bullet. He shot at the sheriffs muzzle as the sheriff rounded a hallway muzzle first, and once he realized whose muzzle it was he stopped. He saved countless lives by stopping a shooter. One kid tragically died that day trying to stop one of the shooters himself. What a heroic kid. More could have died if it weren’t for the efforts of that security guard who was armed and was allowed to be armed but was asked not to be armed. Literally broke no laws.
Fog of war. Things happen that are unexpected. The school is to blame, for 1) the dispute with SD and 2) having an unarmed “security” officer. What was he supposed to do? Throw rocks? How secure is that? I guess after the shooting started, he was supposed to go notify the principal, who, btw, probably already knew there was a problem when the initial gun shots went off. I commend the securityless officer for putting his own life at risk for trying to stop the shooters, as opposed to all those armed police officers, who did nothing at Columnbine (sp)!
This is why government agencies work so hard to maintain the principle of sovereign immunity from civil suits against employees and contractors working for them.
Welcome to the community @Greg161
While this incident doesn’t disprove the benefits of having armed responders on site it does give some very usable ammunition to the people who appose them. I am for armed responders in schools but this affirms my opinion that those responders need to be much better trained than the average citizen who isn’t very likely to have to respond to a very dynamic active shooter situation with a bunch of children in and beyond the line of fire. It also shows why coordinated communication with responding LEOs is very important as well.
I would likely eventually forgive a well trained responder who was following their training to stop an active threat if they acted reasonably but accidentally hit my son. But I wouldn’t be forgiving someone who recklessly killed my son while poorly responding to the threat. The fog of war is not going to be an acceptable explanation for a parent who finds out their child was killed by a person responsible for protecting them.
Yes.
And positive threat identification is a fundamental requirement to discharging a firearm. Shooting at the gun or where you think the person holding the gun is, without identifying that person, is a no-go in a situation like that.
You know or ought to know that could be a police officer or even another armed-even-though-they-shouldn’t-be defender that is present. Accidentally having the bullet hit a student is, IDK, more negligent/not readily excusable when you were shooting at a police officer when you shot the student instead of shooting the cop…vs identifying the actual active shooter/killer threat and a miss on the threat went through a wall and hit a student…I definitely, myself, see those differently
School shooters and underage bangers cannot trust a security guard anymore not to carry concealed! What is this world coming to…
On a different note, Colorado school officilas lack, like 30 IQ points, maybe more.
Im not a fan of Qualified Immunity. You see too many cases of LEO who clearly broke the law, but because whatever law they broke was not established as “something they should have known was illegal” they get off.
" To get past it, plaintiffs in lawsuits have to show that the exact manner in which a police officer violated their rights has been “clearly established” as wrongful by legal precedent. That means they must be able to point to another court case with circumstances nearly identical to theirs, and in which a court ruled that an officer had violated the Constitution."
Here is the thing with guns on school, which in principle I am against, but in practicality can support to a degree. When laws are passed that teachers can bring guns into school, under whatever scheme they set up, say a certain amount of training, Who wants to be the one to take the shot? You will have people the same way police do, start to second guess themselves for fear of criminal or civil charges. If i were to be in a self defense situation I already in my mind have to do the calculations between me and the bad guy, now take that situation and involve kids, teachers and police in the mix, You can have a bad situation. And if you are school police and are in the situation that the Parkland guy was(he did nothing), then you can have a problem. I know he was found not guilty, but still. You are forced to have to determine the proper force, and meet it. While having to not go under or over the level of force needed,
Every lawyer has a speech they give to clients who want to sue some government agency that involves a mini-tutorial on sovereign immunity. It’s why things like hospitals and ambulance enterprises often choose to organize as local government agencies. “Ya, the school resource officer shot your child, but you can’t sue him because he was working for the police department and the school district, both of whom are government agencies.”
I am going to say this, any entity that they involve in the security process, be it a commercial or governmental agency have to be held liable for their actions. Which is why I would never want to apply for that job.
Perhaps, but, overall, I would rather people in that God forbid unfortunate and rare situation be legally able to have the tools necessary to effectively make that decision, if the need arises, vs not having that decision/option at all (reasonably speaking)
However, there are some possibly surprising options available between what most schools have now, and firearms. Teachers and faculty/staff armed with simunition guns is viable (yes, really, and it makes sense in that so many of these people commit suicide on the spot when presented with armed response because they don’t want to be taken)
You can read more about it here
USCCA members get free shipping so make sure those of you that are, log in, or call and see if you can maybe get a better price on those books
I am on Simunation’s home page. never heard of them, but it interesting to me. And here I thought I was fancy using my SIRT pistol and LASR App software.