MARSHALL, N.C. — When schools in a North Carolina county reopen later this month, new security measures will include stocking AR-15 rifles for school resource officers to use in the event of an active shooter.
After the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead in May, school officials and Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood have placed one of the semiautomatic rifles in each of the six schools. Each of the guns will be locked inside a safe, according to Harwood.
After the Uvalde shooting revealed systemic failures and egregiously poor decision-making, the North Carolina school district and the sheriff's office are collaborating to improve security, according to a report by an investigative committee from the Texas House of Representatives.
The officers were in the building for so long, and that suspect was able to infiltrate that building and kill so many kids, Harwood told the Asheville Citizen Times. I want to make sure my deputies are prepared in the event that happens. Dorothy Espelage, a UNC Chapel Hill professor at the School of Education, who has conducted decades of research and studies on school safety and student well-being, does not agree with the idea of having AR 15 s in schools.
Espelage told WLOS-TV that what's going to happen is that we're going to have accidents with these guns. Violence in schools is increased by the presence of an SRO. There are more arrests of kids. School administrators have been meeting with local law enforcement officials, including Harwood, to discuss the updated safety measures, according to Madison County Schools Superintendent Will Hoffman.
Harwood said the county's school resource officers have been training with instructors from Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
Harwood said the safes where the AR-15 s will be kept will also hold ammunition and breach tools for barricaded doors.
We'll have the tools to be able to breach that door if needed. I do not want to have to run back to the car to grab an AR because that is time lost. He said that he hopes that we will never need it, but I want my guys to be as prepared as possible.
The schools are scheduled to reopen Aug. 22, according to the Madison County Schools website.
While the optics of school resource officers potentially handling AR-15 s in schools may be discomforting, Harwood believes it is a necessary response.
I hate that we have come to a place in our nation where I have to put a safe in our schools and lock that safe up for my deputies to be able to acquire an AR-15. We can shut it off and say it won't happen in Madison County, but we never know, Harwood said.