ABC-7 Special Report: Guns in Schools

If a gunman walked into your child’s school, would he or she be a sitting duck? Or is there someone on duty who can fire back?

The Sandy Hook massacre sparked a nationwide conversation on school safety.
Was there any way to stop a gunman from shooting and killing 26 innocent children and teachers?

“I do know after Sandy Hook, everything raised, everything raised,” Tangela Carter, Principal at Gonzalo and Sofia Garcia Elementary School said.

“We have to keep that in mind, which school is next, which business is next? And to be able to keep up with those times, we have to be prepared,” Carlos Carrillo, Safety & Security Manager for Canutillo Independent School District said.

And becauase of that, more and more school districts are taking matters into their own hands by arming employees.
In Texas–districts can opt for a school guardian or a school marshal.

A school guardian is a district employee with a concealed carry permit who’s allowed to carry a weapon at all times. No psychological evaluation or specialized tactical training is required.

A school marshal is a district employee, whose identity is secret, who must be screened, and complete an 80-hour training program.
A marshal’s weapon must be locked in a safe.

School guardians and school marshals are more common in rural parts of the state-where sometimes it takes law enforcement at least 30 minutes to arrive on scene. But it’s a much different story in larger cities like Dallas, Houston and here in El Paso.

“In El Paso, I think we’re really blessed to have multiple law enforcement organizations to quickly respond to situations that may occur, but if you’re out in the middle of Texas in a very rural community, without all of the resources like in El Paso, then it would a very different situation. So, I think you have to base it on a district’s individual needs,” Shane Griffith, Spokesman for the Canutillo Independent School District said.

There are no school guardians or school marshals at any El Paso schools.

The Canutillo district, with more than 6,000 students, hires school resource officers– armed police officers who are trained to take down a gunman, but may or may not be on campus when trouble arrives.

“We are contracted with the anthony police department, so they can provide the resources as school resource officers. These officers rove, they move from campus to campus wherever they’re needed. We have our security officers, that rove as well from campus to campus,” Carrillo said.

The El Paso ISD has its own police force.

“We have 40 officers in the EPISD police and we have officers assigned to every high school and middle school our elementary schools are covered by those officers in those schools feeder pattern so they visit those schools during the week,”Manuel Chavira, Safe and Secure Manager said.

The Socorro ISD also has its own force with 34 armed officers.
And Ysleta ISD opts for school resource officers with 7 SRO’s. One at every high school.

Though school officials say everyone from staff, to students and security are fully prepared to respond to an active shooter,
They hope it’s a day they never have to see.

“We have to embrace the fabric of society as it is today, what we envisioned as the perfect world, back in the 50’s those were it seemed like naive times and more innocent times now with the mass shootings and we have teens performing these atrocious acts with gun violence, we have to embrace that that’s society, and we have to plan accordingly,” Chavira said.

The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement or Tcole, which oversees the marshal program, could not comment on the exact number of marshals in the entire state, because of pending litigation.