Tearful survivor meeting ends Abbott gun talks
Gov. Greg Abbott ended three days of gun violence discussions Thursday with an intense, sometimes tearful session devoted to survivors and victims of mass shootings in Texas.
Many in the state Capitol room attended Santa Fe High School or had children who were there when a gunman killed eight students and two teachers last week, and while there was not universal agreement on the cause of school shootings or solutions to the problem, one common theme emerged — many students said they’d feel safer with more police officers on campus.
The morning the shooting broke out, school band member Grace Johnson was taking a quick nap in the practice hall. She woke abruptly,
and somewhat dazed, to the fire alarm.
“Whoever pulled that probably saved my life,” she told Abbott, adding that she hadn’t heard the gunshots until she walked into the hallway and saw “a kid get shot and fall.”
Johnson survived because she ran back into the band hall and hid with several other students, and her main message for Abbott was simple.
“Our school police officers are our best friends,” she said. “When we meet in the hallway they fist-bump, they ask us how our days are going. In a way, they’re our watchdogs. We need more of them.”
Santa Fe students also suggested “see something, say something” campaigns that encourage students to tell teachers, counselors, administrators or police if they notice suspicious or threatening behavior on campus. A smart phone app to report suspicions, which Abbott said was proposed in previous roundtable discussions, was seen as a smart move.
Students, parents and teachers also wanted more school counselors to work with students experiencing emotional difficulties, saying too often counselors are busy performing other, unrelated duties that reduce time spent with students. Johnson, for example, said she often had to wait weeks for an appointment.
Tyler Morrison, a Santa Fe sophomore, said something as simple as a door stop to wedge under an entrance should be made available as a cheap and effective way to keep shooters out of classrooms. He also suggested dual alarm systems, one tone for a fire drill to get everybody out of a school, another for an active shooter that would alert students not to enter hallways where they can become targets.
Scot Rice used the occasion to tell his wife’s story for the first time in public.
Flo Rice, a substitute teacher at Santa Fe, phoned him at 7:34 a.m. last Friday, saying she had been shot and was in a parking lot, not quite sure where. Scot Rice quickly dressed, jumped in the car and sped to the school, even passing first responders while answering several short calls from his increasingly disoriented wife.
He finally found her lying in a grassy area, unmoving as officers stepped over her body, thinking she was dead. Scot Rice yelled that she was alive, and an officer bent over to check on her.
“He reaches down, picks her up and told her, ‘Put your arms around my neck.’ Flo was shot many times in both legs. The officer ran the whole way in a matter of seconds, while bullets were flying, to me, where he placed her in the passenger seat,” Scot Rice said.
“I’m glad to say that we believe Flo’s going to make a total recovery,” he told a rapt audience, adding that the real reason he was speaking was to honor that officer, Johnny Banda, who ran toward the gunfire without his bulletproof vest and rescued his wife.
His voice cracking as he called Banda “my hero,” Rice turned to the officer, who was sitting nearby, and swept him into a powerful embrace while the room stood and applauded.
Asked toward the end of the meeting what would happen next, Abbott said he and his staff will compile recommendations and hone them into a prioritized action plan.
“This is a beginning but also an ongoing process,” Abbott said. “Our goal is your goal, and that is to make sure our students are safe in school.”
Tyler Morrison’s mother, Kim Morrison, told Abbott and a row of politicians sitting in front of the meeting — including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton — that there was no time to waste.
“I don’t know how to solve this. I’ve heard a lot of great ideas. We just have to solve it, and we have to solve it now,” she said. “If anyone out there thinks this can’t happen in your school, if it happens in a tiny little sleepy town of Santa Fe, Texas, it can happen anywhere, and it can happen today.”
‘Our school police officers are our best friends . ... We need more of them.’ Grace Johnson Santa Fe High School shooting survivor