When a student was shot sitting in a car outside his school, Denver Public Schools vowed to advocate stronger gun-control legislation — but promised that police wouldn’t be invited back to campuses. The board changed its mind after the district’s latest shooting, the Wall Street Journal reports:
Austin Lyle, 17, had been expelled from another school district and was allowed to attend East High on the condition that he get searched by a staff member every morning before class.
Shortly after he walked into the school building that day, Jerald “Wayne” Mason, a school dean, got a call for help on his walkie-talkie. He ran into an office and saw Austin grappling with another dean, who yelled, “Gun! Gun!”
Austin shot both of the deans and ran out. Steps away, students filled the auditorium for an assembly. The two wounded men were taken to the hospital. Austin’s body was later found in the mountains outside of Denver. Authorities said he shot himself.
At a news conference at the high school that day, Marrero stood beside the police chief and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock to announce that two armed officers would be assigned to the East High campus until the end of the school year.
Denver’s is the latest district to admit, after banning police officers from schools following the death of George Floyd, that cops make schools safer.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland reinstated police following the district’s first school shooting just weeks after school resource officers (SRO) were removed from classrooms. Virginia’s Alexandria City School Board cut SRO funding in 2021 but reversed the decision five months later when a student was found with a gun. California’s Pomona Unified School Board reinstated SROs four months after defunding school police when a 12-year old was injured in a shooting near a high-school campus.
The social experiment of removing police from schools failed, and it’s time to stop gambling away children’s lives. One Denver board member said it well: “If [reinstating police] stops one kid from bringing a loaded gun into a school, I think it’s worth it.”