School campuses are known to get rowdy as the school year comes to an end, says Albert Martinez, Dallas ISD chief of police, but two recent gun violence incidents are pushing the school district to ramp up security protocols at high schools city-wide.
The heightened security follows the recent on-campus shooting at Wilmer-Hutchins High School and last week's off-campus shooting of two Roosevelt High School football players who were driving with a school employee.
More police visibility on campus, increased personnel for arrival and dismissal, retraining staff on backpack searches, wands and metal detectors, and reworking daily schedules to maximize the number of staff available for active monitoring are all going into effect during the last month of the school year, the district said.
“It’s the same safety measures as before. Just more visibility, more presence,” Martinez said. “What we are really trying to do is ensure that our students and our faculty know all that is important.”
Earlier this month, one student was shot and another was arrested at Wilmer-Hutchins High School. The shooting happened inside a classroom, and a student, 17-year-old Ja’kerian Rhodes-Ewing, was taken into custody. Dallas ISD said the student who was shot is “on the path to full recovery.”
“It’s the same safety measures as before. Just more visibility, more presence.” – Albert Martinez, DISD Chief of Police
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“Everyone at Dallas ISD wants the Wilmer-Hutchins High School community to know that our hearts are with them,” Dallas ISD said in a statement. “Our investigation revealed the handgun was brought into the school during the late entry process during which several safety protocols were not strictly followed.”
Dallas ISD requires clear backpacks on campus, and Wilmer-Hutchins has metal detectors at entryways. The student was allowed into the building after setting off the metal detector without a further check, Martinez told the Dallas Morning News. Days after the shooting, around 50 students walked out of class, claiming that school leaders brushed over the incident and they did not feel safe in the school. Wilmer-Hutchins students told the Morning News that the school did not consistently utilize the entry-way metal detectors or enforce the clear bag policy.
Martinez said the heightened presence of on-campus law enforcement and security protocol enforcement are as much a reassurance to students and staff as they are preventive of a crime.
“It just brings reassurance that oh, look, there’s a patrol car here, there's an officer there,” said Martinez. “What (students are) not seeing is the retraining on protocols, the discussions we are having on creating best practices and gold standards, so that we can implement those on every level throughout the district.”
Classes at Roosevelt High School were canceled last Friday after two students were wounded in a drive-by shooting off-campus. The students, ages 16 and 17, were inside a school employee’s car at the time of the shooting. The employee drove the students back to campus in an attempt to get aid.
The campus closed after receiving a “credible threat” that evening, the district said. The shooting is being investigated by the Dallas Police Department because it occurred off-campus, the district said.
“Our mental health specialists are there for Wilmer-Hutchins, for Roosevelt and for other schools,” Martinez said. “We really don’t know why this happened … We are trying to figure out why it happened and, of course, take action to catch the person or the persons who did this.”
