Minutes before a 17-year-old boy entered a Texas high school with a loaded, 9 mm handgun, school resource officer (SRO) Christopher Smith of the Fort Worth Police Department and three other staff members intercepted the student. Carefully built relationships, familiarity with student habits and the quick response afforded by having an SRO on campus kept the weapon out of the building and possibly prevented a shooting that day in 2019.
The student with the gun was part of a group with whom Smith spoke the day before. Smith and Frankie Gasca, an advisor from the school system’s security department, were in a common area near the school’s cafeteria when they noticed through body language and voices two groups that appeared to be in conflict. Smith and Gasca engaged each group separately. They learned of a previous off-campus fight about which some of the students remained upset. Smith’s and Gasca’s interaction with the groups built a level of rapport and dispelled the immediate conflict. Both groups claimed they would let it go.
The next day, a school administrator received a call from a parent of a student who heard from friends that another student – who the parent named – planned to bring a gun to campus. The parent who called feared for their child’s safety. The boy who reportedly planned to be armed was one of the students with whom Smith had spoken the day before.
Smith and administrators quickly learned that the suspect student was not in his scheduled class. Gasca knew an off-campus location where the suspect was likely to be. Smith, Gasca, a backup officer and an administrator immediately began walking toward that location.
As they exited the building, they saw the suspect walking across school property while holding a rolled-up hoodie. As he saw the four men walking toward him, the student appeared visibly defeated. Smith asked the student to hand him the hoodie. Inside was the 9 mm handgun with a loaded magazine.
“Had it not been for the prior knowledge the area adviser had and the rapport that we built due to previous interactions, that incident would have turned out much differently,” Smith told NASRO.
A court convicted the student of “possessing a firearm where prohibited” and sentenced him to attend a juvenile justice school.
How would things have gone differently without an SRO on campus? Smith said the gun would likely have entered the building in the time it would have taken for a patrol officer to respond. In addition, a patrol officer would not have been as familiar with the suspect as Smith was. This could have resulted in a different, more confrontational atmosphere that could have unnecessarily escalated. Smith’s presence on campus, however, enabled a quick and peaceful resolution of a serious threat.
Do you have a similar SRO success story? If so, contact NASRO PIO Jay Farlow, [email protected].