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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 20 March 2018

With security measures, urban schools avoid mass shootings

By COREY WILLIAMS when a gun in a backpack
DETROIT (AP) — Alondra Al- accidentally fired inside a
varez lives about five min- Los Angeles Unified School
utes from her high school on District middle school. The
Detroit's southwest side but district does random metal-
she drives there instead of detector wand searches
walking because her moth- daily in middle schools and
er fears for her safety. Once high schools. A 12-year-old
the 18-year-old enters the girl has been charged with
building, her surroundings being a minor in posses-
take on a more secure feel sion of a firearm and hav-
almost immediately as she ing a weapon on school
passes through a bank of grounds. In response to the
closely monitored metal Parkland shooting, Florida’s
detectors. governor has said he wants
"My mom has never been to spend $500 million to in-
comfortable with me walk- crease law enforcement
ing to school. My mom is re- and mental health coun-
ally scared of street thugs," selors at schools, to make
said Alvarez, who attends buildings more secure with
Western International. metal detectors and to cre-
As schools around the U.S. ate an anonymous tip line.
look for ways to impose A package of legislation
tougher security measures passed by the New York
in the wake of last month's In a photo from Thursday, March 8, 2018, in Detroit, Alondra Alvarez, a student at Western Interna- state Senate includes pro-
school shooting in Park- tional High School, goes through a metal detector and has her backpack checked as she enters visions for metal detec-
land, Florida, that left 17 the school. Experts say metal detectors and other security measures put in place decades ago tors and improved secu-
to quell gang and other violence in many urban schools have made them tough targets for mass
people dead, they don't shootings by troubled students or outsiders. rity technology in schools.
have to look further than (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) A parent in Knox County,
urban districts such as De- Kentucky, has said his
troit, Chicago, Los Angeles charged with 17 counts of metal detectors in high "Our schools need to be law office would donate
and New York that installed first-degree murder and 17 schools and middle schools. safer than they are," Vitti $25,000 for metal detectors
metal detectors and other counts of attempted mur- New York schools also had said. "As a nation, we need in schools there.
security in the 1980s and der. them in some buildings. to fully fund and make sure Alvarez, the student at De-
1990s to combat gang and The massacre has galva- By 1992, metal detectors all districts can adequately troit’s Western International,
drug violence. nized thousands of students had been installed in a staff school resource offi- said she and others who at-
Security experts believe around the country who few dozen Chicago high cers and also offer mental tend the school go through
these measures have made walked out of their class- schools. And in 1993, under health and first-aid training metal detectors every
urban districts less prone rooms for 17 minutes — one pressure to make schools to all educators." morning. Her elementary
to mass shootings, which for each Parkland victim — safer, Los Angeles' district Security measures don't al- and middle schools also
have mostly occurred in on March 14 to protest gun announced that it would ways keep guns off school had metal detectors.
suburban and rural districts. violence. randomly search students grounds. A 17-year-old high “I’ve always seen it as
Officials in some suburban "I think urban schools are with metal detectors. school senior was killed and something that made me
and rural school districts eons ahead. They've been Such measures "are de- another student wounded feel safe,” she said, adding
are now considering de- dealing with violence a signed to identify and March 7 in a Birmingham, that all schools should have
tectors as they rethink their lot longer than suburban hopefully deter anybody Alabama, classroom shoot- them and not just inner-city
security plans after the schools," said Philip Smith, from bringing a weapon to ing. Metal detectors at the ones “so students don’t feel
shooting at Marjory Stone- president of the National school, but metal detectors school were not in use that discriminated against.”
man Douglas High School, African American Gun As- alone portray an illusion of day. A 17-year-old student But metal detectors,
where 19-year-old former sociation. being safe," said Nikolai has been charged with property searches, secu-
student Nikolas Cruz alleg- During the mid-1980s, De- Vitti, superintendent of the manslaughter. rity guards and police in
edly brought in a duffel troit was one of the first 50,000-student Detroit Pub- Two students were shot schools create conditions
bag containing an assault districts in the nation to put lic Schools Community Dis- and three people suffered similar to those found in
rifle and opened fire. He's permanent, walk-through trict. other injuries in February prisons, he said.q