Rise In Guns At FL Schools Reignites Debate On Safety Measures

TAMPA, FL — The fifth arrest in the past month of a Hillsborough County public school student on accusations they brought a gun to school has reignited the debate over implementing controversial safety measures, including the use of metal detectors, on school campuses.

On Wednesday, Tampa police said they arrested a 10th-grade student at Blake High School in Tampa after a loaded .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol was found concealed in a pencil pouch in the student's backpack.

According to a police report, school staff saw a group of students hanging out in the school stairwell, a violation of school rules. After receiving a reprimand, the students were escorted to the principal's office, where school staff members began searching the backpacks.

One 15-year-old student, however, refused to allow staff to look through his backpack. His mother came to the high school and searched it herself as school officials looked on. When she didn't find anything suspicious, she handed the backpack to a school administrator to doublecheck, according to police. The administrator opened a pencil pouch tucked deep inside the backpack and found the loaded .380 semi-automatic pistol inside.

The teen was arrested and charged with felony possession of a firearm on school property.

• Related: Parkland Families Still Waiting For Change 4 Years After Massacre

String Of Guns At School, Police Concerns

Tampa Police Chief Mary O'Connor said this latest arrest is disconcerting in light of three previous arrests of students accused of bringing guns on Tampa school campuses.

The first in the series of student gun arrests was handled by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office on Aug. 19, a little more than a week after the start of the school year. A 17-year-old student at Lennard High School in Ruskin was arrested for having a gun in his car parked on the school campus. A friend spotted the gun in the car and accidentally shot himself in the leg.

On Aug. 23, an 18-year-old student at Hillsborough High School in Tampa was arrested after a gun was found in his backpack by a school resource officer.

On Aug. 31, a 15-year-old girl was arrested, once again at Hillsborough High School, after a loaded 9mm pistol was found wrapped in a T-shirt inside her backpack.

And, on Sept. 7, a 13-year-old student at Franklin Middle School in Tampa was arrested after he showed a loaded semi-automatic pistol he'd brought to school to other students.

"It is incredibly concerning that yet another student has not only gotten their hands on a loaded firearm, but carelessly chose to bring the weapon with them to school," O'Connor said. "Combating this issue must be a community effort."

O'Connor places the onus on parents, who she said should be aware of what their children are up to, even if it means violating the child's privacy.

"Parents, don't be afraid to search your child's bedroom, backpack or their cell phones to make sure they are making good decisions," she said. "It is your responsibility to do so for the safety of your child and others."

At the same time, O'Connor said parents and school districts need to keep hammering home the "See Something, Say Something" mantra, urging students to report youths who display guns at school or brag about having a gun on campus. In two of the five student arrests, the teens found with guns were turned in by other students.

Are Metal Detectors In School The Solution?

The use of metal detectors in schools was explored and rejected by the majority of Florida school districts in the aftermath of the mass school shooting that killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018.

The exceptions where metal detectors are now used are Broward County, the county in which the school massacre occurred, and Duval County in north Florida.

In January, four years after the mass shooting, the Broward County School Board voted to buy hand-held metal detectors for all schools in the district.

The school district was already using the hand-held metal detector "wands" at major events such as football games and graduations. The school board's decision to expand the searches to regular school days came after several students were arrested for bringing guns to school, including on Dec. 17, when two students were discovered with guns at two different schools — South Plantation High School and Miramar High School.

On Jan. 6, the Broward County School Board agreed to purchase hand-held scanners for every public school in the county. Random screenings began in March.

It's a safety measure that Broward County School Board member Lori Alhadeff believes should have been put in place immediately following the 2018 Parkland school massacre.

“The fact we’re doing metal detection, hands-on metal detection, now in 2022, that’s great,” said Alhadeff at the school board meeting following the board's voted unanimous vote.

“Personally, I feel that we should’ve implemented this right after the tragedy," she said, placing an emphasis on the word "personally" for good reason.

'I Would Take All the Bullets 4 You'

Alhadeff's 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was among the 14 students killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting.

Lori Alhadeff won the hearts of Americans around the country, along with a seat on the Broward County School Board, in August 2018 after penning a poignant letter to her deceased daughter. The letter was posted on the website dearworld.org on Feb. 14, 2019, a year after the school massacre.

Dear Alyssa,

It’s Valentine’s Day. A day full of love, chocolates and flowers.

For me, it is more than that now. Last Valentine’s Day was the last time I saw you. You wore a black and white dress. Your long dark hair dangled. Your makeup looked just right. Of course, your white Converse sneakers protected your feet as you walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Valentine’s Day is now about memories. Today, like all days, I remember.

I remember you weren’t looking forward to going to school that day. Like many 14-year-old girls, you wanted a Valentine and were disappointed that you didn’t have one.

High school love is magic. I wanted that for you.

I remember the golden gift bag I gave you that morning. It held a pair of diamond earrings to make you feel pretty, a chocolate bar to make you smile, and hair ties so you wouldn’t ask for mine.

I touched your ears, putting the stems of the earrings through your lobes. You said you were ready to go to school after that.

You opened the car door.

“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too,” you said.

Valentine’s Day. The last time I saw you alive.

Alhadeff's letter was accompanied by a photo of herself wearing a T-shirt with the logo of the nonprofit organization she and her husband, Ilan, founded in their daughter's memory, Make Our Schools Safe. In the photo, Alhadeff displays a bold message to her daughter handwritten with a black marker across her arm: "I Would Take All the Bullets 4 You."

Although relieved that the Broward County School Board finally heard her plea, Alhadeff said the use of metal detectors is just one item checked off a laundry list of measures that school districts have been ordered by the state to implement to adequately protect students.

“It’s something that I’ve been trying to push for four years because we have to be able to find a way to prevent weapons, knives, guns from getting into our schools," Alhadeff said. "And the random metal detection is one way we can go about doing that. I think it's definitely going to help create another layer of school safety protection for our schools, but we have to do more."

Just last month, the Duval County School Board one-upped Broward County by unanimously voting to spend $8.7 million to purchase 80 to 85 full-size walk-through metal detectors, similar to those used at courthouses. The school district plans to place them at the entrances of all 23 high schools in the county.

The measure comes after the school district's threat analysis teams reported 319 school threats last year.

The Evolv detectors that the school district is purchasing, the same brand of detectors used at Walt Disney World in Orlando, are equipped with advanced digital sensors and artificial intelligence to spot guns and other concealed weapons through heavy hoodies and overstuffed backpacks.

The big selling point though, Duval County Public Schools Police Chief Greg Burton told the school board, is the Evolv detectors allow 3,600 people to be scanned each hour, 10 times faster than traditional detectors,

The Duval school board already led the state as the first county to approve the use of hand-held metal detectors at all high schools. The school board approved the measure in November 2018, nine months after the Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School shootings.

However, Burton told the school board that scanning every high school student with a hand-held detector proved problematic due to the length of time it takes for students to empty their pockets, and oftentimes remove jewelry, belts and other accessories before the scanner clears them.

"We have to do the backpacks, lunch boxes, as well as wanding their bodies," he said.

As a result, students were backed up at school entrances each morning waiting to be scanned. It caused student to be late for their first classes. They not only missed out on valuable academic time but disrupted the rest of the class when they finally arrived, Burton said.

These glitches convinced the school district to discontinue daily screenings of every student. Instead, the hand-held scanners were reserved for random screenings and large crowds until the school board agreed to purchase the full-size scanners in August.

That's when Burton enticed the school board with promises that the new walk-through metal detectors would get students through the scanning process 40 percent faster.

The school district still plans to use the less intimidating hand-held metal detectors on elementary and middle school students.

Why The 4-Year Delay?

The fact that just two of Florida's 67 counties have initiated metal screenings for concealed weapons points not only to the high cost and manpower required for a schoolwide screening process but also to the continuing controversy surrounding the use of metal detectors in schools.

Campus Safety online magazine took a look at the pros and cons of both hand-held and full-size metal detectors on K-12 campuses.

While walk-through scanners are now routinely used at football stadiums, concert halls, airports, courthouses, theme parks and other venues throughout the Sunshine State, they've failed to catch on at schools.

Reasons include the cost, concerns about sending the wrong message (the perception that metal detectors mean the school is dangerous) and the difficulty hiring and training qualified security officers to operate the sophisticated computerized metal detectors.

While hand-held scanners are relatively inexpensive ($200 to $500), walk-through scanners can be pricey.

A walk-through archway-style scanner can be purchased for as little as $3,000 to $5,000. The hitch is they require people with expertise to calibrate, program, maintain and operate them.

The Evolv scanner, considered the Cadillac of metal detectors, is available through a monthly subscription, eliminating the programming and maintenance headaches. However, the subscriptions cost between $2,000 and $3,000 per month, or roughly $120,000 for a four-year contract. That doesn't include the cost of training and paying staff to operate them.

Adding to the expense, Campus Safety recommends that schools using walk-through scanners also buy hand-held scanners to use as a backup if a student can't walk through the large scanner without setting it off. Airport security personnel are all equipped with hand-held backup scanners because there are some people who inexplicably set scanners off, even after they've removed all metal possessions.

Random Screenings

In the case of random screenings, like those now taking place in Broward County, critics are concerned that students of color will be targeted.

Faculty scholar Jason P. Nance of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, who studied the use of safety measures in schools, agreed a danger exists that metal detectors and other surveillance devices will foster hostile school environments "that may lead to even more disorder and dysfunction."

Using metal detectors (either hand-held or walk-through), performing random searches of students along with their belongings and lockers, imprisoning students behind locked gates during the school day and incessantly watching them using surveillance cameras can have a negative effect on the academic environment and the student's ability to learn, Nance said.

"There comes a point where monitoring students no longer enhances the learning environment; it impedes it," he said.

Nance said the possibility of racial bias in the use of these devices can't be discounted. Despite all efforts to prevent targeting students based on their ethnicity, appearance or low-income backgrounds, he said studies by the U.S. Department of Education have shown a subconscious bias toward these students who are more likely to be suspended or expelled, more closely monitored by school staff and more intensely scrutinized by law enforcement.

Broward County Schools Superintendent Vickie Cartwright said this concern was anticipated when the district purchased its hand-held scanners. She said the school district is using a computer program to randomly choose screenings to eliminate bias.

Paying For Past Mistakes

Nevertheless, many Broward parents say they have lost confidence in the school district's ability to protect their children after a grand jury investigation was unsealed on Aug. 19.

The Twentieth Statewide Grand Jury was convened on Feb. 25, 2019, a year after the Parkland shootings, to determine whether the Broward County School District was following the mandates spelled out in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.

The act was passed by the Florida Legislature after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission issued its final report on the school shooting on Jan. 1, 2019. The commission, chaired by Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, spent 10 months reviewing what went wrong on Feb. 14, 2018.

Following the grand jury's recommendation, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an order on Aug. 26 removing four longtime Broward County School Board members from office for "incompetence, neglect of duty and misuse of authority."

DeSantis said the grand jury was asked to look at "whether public entities and school officials committed fraud and deceit" by mismanaging capital improvement funds, a portion of which was supposed to go toward school safety upgrades.

Instead of using the $987 million in SMART Bond Program money as outlined when the bond was issued in 2014, the grand jury accused the four sitting school board members and a fifth former member of committing fraud and deceit by mismanaging funds devoted to school safety."

In an indictment of the school board members, the grand jury said the elected officials failed to install a safety-related fire alarm that could have saved lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, because they deemed a fire alarm "such a low priority that it remains uninstalled at multiple schools” today.

"The findings of the statewide grand jury affirm the work of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Commission," DeSantis said. "We hope this suspension (of the school board members) brings the Parkland community another step towards justice."

The current remaining five school board members include Alhadeff, who was re-elected during the Aug. 23 primary and now serves as vice chairwoman of the school board.

Also elected to the school board was Debra Hixon. Hixon's husband, Chris, a Navy veteran, was the athletic director and wrestling coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

When gunman Nikolas Cruz began his shooting spree at the high school, Chris Hixon ran toward Cruz without a weapon intending to single-handedly disarm Cruz. Chris Hixon lost his life in the attempt.

Debra Hixon said she was disheartened after reading the grand jury's report on the Broward County School Board and its lack of progress in implementing mandated safety measures.

"It is unbelievably disappointing when we have talked about what we need to do and then you see people that, for whatever reason, do not take this seriously," she said. "I guess they just do not think it is ever going to happen in their school."

Prosecutors were surprised Wednesday when the defense abruptly rested during the penalty phase of Nikolas Cruz's trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. The penalty phase got underway two months ago, on July 18. The jury will decide whether Cruz will spend the rest of his life in prison or receive the death penalty. Stay tuned as Patch follows up with reactions from family members and more on their continued attempts at school safety reforms at both the district and national levels.