Private guard hailed as hero in Colo.

Incident stirs debate on who keeps schools safe

A security guard credited with capturing one of the suspects in last week’s Colorado school shooting fired his weapon inside the school, reports say.

The rampage that left one student dead and eight people injured underscores new questions about the use of private guards in schools versus police.

The STEM School Highlands Ranch outside Denver contracted with a security guard, a Marine who has not been identified. He had stayed out of the public eye since Tuesday, when two suspects opened fire at the charter school.

On Thursday, the Associated Press confirmed reports that he had fired his weapon, citing a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case. The official did not address whether anyone was hit when the gun fired.

Contracted security guards, who may be armed or unarmed, differ from school resource officers, who are sworn police officers with tactical training who spend time developing relationships with schools.

Even experts in the field of school security are split on what kind of personnel leads to a “safer” school.

School resource officers are “carefully selected and specifically trained,” said Mo Canady, the executive director of the trade association for those officers. The group trains thousands of police officers in how to develop relationships with young people.

“We want the gun to be in the right hands,” Canady added.

In reality, most public schools don’t have a school resource officer. Only about 40% employ one, said Jeff Allison, a special adviser for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.

Other options for schools include hiring a retired law enforcement officer, creating an in-house school police department, contracting with off-duty police and paying them overtime to work during school hours, or even convincing school parents who are sworn officers to lend a hand.

Ken Trump, a longtime expert in the field of school security, believes the best option is to have a trained, professional law enforcement officer in a school.

“Police officers are trained to factor in that there’s a much greater civilian population around them in a public setting where armed conflict might occur,” said Trump, who is not related to the president.

But Trump conceded that even the best training cannot predict how people will respond in a life-threatening situation.

For example, last year, the armed school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, failed to charge into the school and apprehend the shooter that killed 17.

“You don’t know what their emotional response is going to be under stress,” Trump said.

At least three students have been hailed as heroes for disarming one of the suspects during Tuesday’s shooting. One of them, Kendrick Castillo, was shot and killed during the struggle. A second, Joshua Jones, is recovering at home after being shot twice.

The armed security guard at the school was employed by Boss High Level Protection, which was started by a SWAT team leader who responded to the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.

The company’s owner, Grant Whitus, told the Associated Press that the guard ran to the area of the shootings and confronted one of the armed students in a hallway.

“He doesn’t even realize how many lives he saved by stopping a school shooting,” Whitus said Wednesday.

An attorney for the guard, Robert Burk, said his client acted in the best interests of protecting the children at the school and helped resolve the situation without further bloodshed.