MARSHALL, N.C. — When schools in one North Carolina county reopen later this month, new security measures will include stockpiling AR-15 rifles for school resource officers to use in the event of an active shooter.
Prompted by the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead in May, school officials and Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood placed one of the semi-automatic rifles in each of the county’s six schools. Each of the weapons will be locked in a safe, Harwood said.
A North Carolina school district and a sheriff’s office are collaborating to improve security after the Uvalde shooting exposed systemic failures and “extremely poor decision-making” that led to more than an hour of chaos before the gunman was finally brought to book and killed by law enforcement, according to a report written by a Texas House of Representatives investigative committee.
“These officers were in this building for such a long time and this suspect was able to break into the building and injure and kill so many children,” Harwood told the Asheville Citizen Times. “I just want to make sure my deputies are prepared in case that happens.
The idea of putting AR-15s in schools doesn’t sit well with Dorothy Espelage, a UNC Chapel Hill professor in the School of Education who has conducted decades of research and study on school safety and student well-being.
“What’s going to happen is we’re going to have incidents with these weapons,” Espelage told WLOS-TV. The very presence of SROs increases violence in schools. There are more arrests of children. Why should they have those AR-15s? There’s no point.”
Madison County Schools Superintendent Will Hoffman said school administrators meet regularly with local law enforcement officials, including Harwood, to discuss updated safety measures.
Harwood said the district’s school resource officers have been training with instructors from Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
Harwood said the safes where the AR-15s will be stored will also contain ammunition and tools for breaking through barricaded doors.
“We will have these tools to be able to break through that door if necessary. I don’t want to run back to the car to get the AR because that’s wasted time. Hopefully we’ll never need it, but I want my guys to be as prepared as they can be,” he said.
Schools are scheduled to reopen on Aug. 22, according to the Madison County Schools website.
While the optics of school officers potentially operating AR-15s in schools may be uncomfortable for some, Harwood said he believes it’s a necessary response.
“I hate that we’ve gotten to a place in our nation where I have to put a safe in our schools and lock it so my deputies can get their hands on an AR-15. But we can rule it out and say it’s not going to happen in Madison County, but we never know,” Harwood said.
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