‘Firearms instructor’ hired as school guard leaves handgun in student bathroom

[meegbear]

Source: Rawstory.com

A prosecutor in Lapeer, Michigan says, “No harm, no foul,” after a charter school took the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) advice and hired a armed security guard who promptly left his handgun unattended in a student bathroom.

Chatfield School co-directors Matt Young and Bill Kraly announced last week that they had hired retired Lapeer County Sheriff’s Dept. firearms instructor Clark Arnold as a security guard in response to the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. “It’s a tremendous asset to the safety of our students,” Young told WNEM in a report that aired on Tuesday.

But by Wednesday, the school had admitted to The Flint Journal that the retired firearms instructor had made a “made a breach in security protocol” and left his unloaded handgun unattended in the school restroom “for a few moments.”

“The school has put additional security procedures in place that follow local law enforcement practices and guidelines,” a statement from Young said. “At no time was any student involved in this breach of protocol. We will continue to work on improving school security.” The school director insisted that the incident had been reported to authorities, but said that any repercussions for the newly hired guard were “a personnel matter.”


Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/18/newly-hired-school-guard-leaves-unattended-handgun-in-student-bathroom/

---

[Paulie]

1. Unloaded gun like Barny Fife?

Bullshit that it was unloaded or that an unloaded guard gun is anything but theater for the NRA nuts. School admin should be fired but its an unaccountable charter.

[benld74]

3. Damn good thing his breast pocket was still buttoned!!!

[d06204]

16. I agree...

this "unloaded" bull is to try and convince you that shit don't really stink!

[Heather MC]

54. "He had one bullet for his pistol, had to keep it in his pocket. Ole my darling oh my darling.......

Ok I know I just aged myself but it was worth it
anyone else remember that line from Andy Griffth?

[tularetom]

2. Not sure why a prosecutor was even called in this case

As far as I know stupidity and incompetence are not felonies.

But the school would be making a mistake not to immediately terminate this buffoon and consider paying a bit more to get someone who actually knows what the fuck he's doing.

[rhett o rick]

18. Stupidity and incompetence become a problem when they endanger students. nm

[caseymoz]

49. If a kid would have gotten shot . . .

. . . he would have been charged with something even if "stupidity and incompetence are not felonies." Admit it; you'd probably change your tune if that happened.

[tularetom]

51. It isn't a matter of changing my tune

If a kid had been shot with the gun this asshole left in the bathroom a crime would have been committed and it would be proper for a prosecutor to get involved. But a kid wasn't shot and that's my point.

As it stands there is no crime and therefore no need for prosecution.

The school can and should deal with this as a personnel matter. In other words, fire this clown.

[caseymoz]

53. I'm not saying he should be prosecuted either.

What I'm saying is, it would have been the very same act of negligence whether a kid would have been killed or not-- that's the real crime. We try people for attempted murder or theft. We made drunk driving a crime whether you kill somebody doing it or not.The deciding factor on whether he should be tried here seems to be not whether a negligent crime took place, because it definitely did; it's really in how much the consequences pissed people off.

[tblue]

4. I don't know why people think being a security guard

means you are infallible. Guards are human and humans make mistakes, have issues, break down, have had bad childhoods and horrible weekends, overreact at times, get pissed at bad kids. Same as anybody. You don't put a gun in a school. Period.

[oldbanjo]

29. There are two armed cops at the school that my girlfriend is a book keeper at.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Why does this version of the story omit that he's a retired sherriff's deputy?

That he was a police officer non-relevant?

[onehandle]

6. Nobody ever said that Rambo was smart. nt

[samsingh]

7. many guns will lead to many problems

law of entropy

[Beartracks]

38. I like that.

Can I use that phrase?

=================

[samsingh]

40. absolutely

[Crunchy Frog]

8. They'll need to hire armed guards for the armed guards.

Only more guns will take care of this problem.

[Jefferson23]

61. ha ha

[ajk2821]

9. This is what I don't understand

We read and hear stories about people leaving laptops with national security information in Starbucks and other places. People leave their phones all over the place and find their private pictures leaked all over the internet. People make mistakes and leave things. If for no other reason than that one, schools do not need armed guards in them. This could have been horribly worse.

[oldbanjo]

30. My girlfriend is a book keeper at a school that has two armed cops.

[ancianita]

10. If this is some implied argument against guards, or national school security measures, it's a fail.

I'm no NRA supporter, either. But consider:

A structural flaw in a vast number of schools is bathrooms. Adults should not be sharing bathrooms with the student body (heh heh). Schools must remodel or re-purpose space for separate adult bathrooms. Then, if this happens, as it does with people who simply have 'too much to remember' in such high-stimulation environments, a student wouldn't have access to it. Such a structural change has the same justification as teacher lounges, offices, meeting rooms, etc.

For it to work everywhere else, people everywhere else have to stop cheaping out on their schools' bathroom structures. (I know how that sounds...) Forcing adults and students to use the same bathrooms is plain trashy stupid. It confuses students about the seriousness of the adult/child and student/teacher separation that help students understand adult boundaries.

I'm anti-NRA. But armed security at entrances/exits has worked in Chicago's hundreds of schools for the last fifteen years. Entrance/Exit armed security in the third largest city in the country, with NO within-school killings -- proves that armed security in schools does work -- when implemented correctly with qualified personnel.

Americans have to stop cheaping out on security personnel. Americans' school districts must, must stop leaving schools defenseless because some fake adult administrators and politicians screw up on the proper implementation of armed security for their school children.

[SpankMe]

13. Separate facilities for students and adults.

My son's elementary school has this. There are students-only bathrooms and adults/staff-only bathrooms. The rationale is pedophilia, not guns, but still.

Also, armed security makes sense at tough, inner city schools like in Chicago, L.A., NYC, etc. owing to gang problems and the like. Few are against that.

But changing the paradigm to put armed guards in "every school in America" isn't the way to go. The security profiles should match the school's environment and needs.

[ancianita]

22. Fine. Know your community's gun ownership. Know your community's health.

Newtown didn't. Everyone's kids shouldn't be subject to bad adult judgment.

Schools in Chicago are NOT full of "tough" kids "owing to gang problems." They are full of kids. Their world is no more full of guns than is the world of Newtown kids. Seeing an armed guard at entrance/exits in a school doesn't kill kids. Not having a guard because of ego needs of the appearance of safety has killed and continues to kill kids in schools.

Changing any paradigm means adapting to new realities. The majority of parents should investigate their communities and vote for the best security practices for ALL kids. One kid's parents' denial of risk shouldn't be the risk that another kid bears. Better for all to have the security and not need it than to need it and not have it.

If you want to frame this argument as an individual school issue, fine by me. Then each community and individual school should grieve about its mistakes and dead children alone. That's exactly what the NRA would like.

[oldbanjo]

31. My girlfriend is a book keeper at a school that has two armed cops.

They make a lot of arrests during the year. This is a rural area and the nearest City has about 6,000 people.

[ancianita]

34. Got it. ...and your point is...?

[DWinNJ]

43. Practice makes perfect

[Lordquinton]

39. Most schools do this already

but this was a charter school, which means they can have the classes taught in the bathrooms with rifles as pointers and no one can do a thing about it because there is no accountability.

[ancianita]

46. If charter schools receive public tax monies, in principle, they're responsible to district boards.

[Lordquinton]

47. in principle, yes

in practice, they can do pretty much whatever they want.

[ancianita]

48. The public gets the level of accountability it demands. In principle. In practice, the public

can be accused of being lazy, although in all fairness, professional trustworthiness should rightly be assumed until proven otherwise.

[Lordquinton]

62. I'm not sure if we agree

it sounds like it, but it also kinda sounds like you're placing the blame on the public. Of course that's the line they use to avoid any kind of oversight so it could go either way. Charter schools are run like businesses with public funds and so many road blocks to accountability, from fund allocation, to curriculum, to enrollment, and there isn't much we can do about it because no one aside from teachers, and their allies care that going on 2 generations of children are being deprived of their education, and that will only beget more generations, etc, et el.

It's a somewhat passionate issue for me, and all I can really do is rant on the internet to the choir.

[ancianita]

63. I do place blame on the public, which has fallen asleep about holding taxpayer-funded

services that have visibly eroded over two generations. Maybe we don't agree on what schools should be. I don't accept charter schools as any viable alternative schooling choice for the public, especially since public schools have never been properly funded in the first place.

Public schooling is absolutely not a business but the public, so enamored with the rich, believe everything the rich and their patronage henchmen tell them to think. The rich never treat their kids' schools as businesses because they know that human capacity building isn't widget making. There should be no public subsidy of private profit.

The whole funding boondoggle politically named "reform" should be taken to court to disallow public funding of business-styled schools.

Charters pretty much say to the public what Romney said: "Don't ask me what the plan and the outcome will be right now. I'll let you know after I get the job."

As for using the internet to rant on pet issues, we have that in common.

[Lordquinton]

66. No, we 100% agree on schools

I just learned today that my Governor wants to force 75% or so of public collages to online only, skyrocket tuition, gut grants, and generally make it night impossible to get an education in this state, which not 20 years ago had some of the best public education in the nation.

The public is partially to blame, but we are so overloaded with so much on a daily basis it's far too easy to miss things. Not even little things, but huge issues can completely slip by. I used to know every movie coming out, but these days there are major blockbusters and award winners that I have never heard of, and these are movies that I would really want to see. I'm a rather smart and observant person, so I can imagine how difficult it must be for the majority.

On top of that each individual is given ten different opinions and left to their own devices on what is the truth, when 9 of those things are lies, and the one true nugget is barely mentioned. All those "Both sides do it" "two equal sides to this story" and other strawmans that we all know too well.

So yes, partially the public is to blame, but when there is a nice smiling man who is swearing ten times to Sunday that he is telling the truth, and he would sooner cut off his own arm than lie, and it's not just one man, but 100 all saying the same thing, then it puts it in a bit of perspective. I place the blame on the liars, not the people who were lied to. Jail the criminals, not the victims.

[ancianita]

67. There are frameworks for knowing the truth. That's what high schools and colleges do for people --

help them determine their own levels of gullibility, credible information and the senders' credible authority. It's the old Aristotelian model of rhetoric, and that's just one reliable model. The problem is that given the 1st Amendment, we can't jail anyone for lying. We have to prove all claims of fraud, and yet racketeers can claim simple stupidity when any case gets made that points to their fraudulent intentions. It used to take decades for the signal of truth to gain traction in the white noise of economic and political racketeering, but now it's only taking a fraction of that.

Still. Business has decided that humans are widgets. If capitalists can't take the competition that comes from a fairer system of upward mobility through schooling, then they need to be driven out of the halls of public institutions and keep their vampire squid hands off our tax monies for kids and public services; they need to be made to stay out there in the red tooth and claw world of their 'free' markets. Our schools are being ruined because capitalists have turned to other countries' grads' expertise. Our people are no longer the spending priority of their own state and federal governments.

We need to push hard to drive the money out of politics and reclaim a curriculum that serves all people well.

[malthaussen]

45. Did you ever hear the joke about the English gentleman...

... who was chalking lines around the perimeters of his club? When asked why he was doing it, he said, "To keep the lions out of England!"
"But there are no lions in England!"
"See? It works."

-- Mal

[Liberalagogo]

11. This wouldn't have happened

if the security guard had been armed.

[louis-t]

12. Oh, wait.....

[rhett o rick]

20. Armed with a brain. nm

[ancianita]

23. Be sarcastic, but it hasn't happened to 400,000 Chicago kids.

Big cities are the first place to come under fire if such shootings were to happen.

[Liberalagogo]

27. Sense of humor

Get one.

I wouldn't snark this if people died or were injured. Yes, it's serious, but if you have a problem with remarks like this, about a situation where someone was EXTEMELY stupid, but no one got hurt, I suggest you NEVER watch The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.

[ancianita]

33. Too late. Been watching them since 2000 and still serious about kids' school security.

[Liberalagogo]

35. Whoosh

right over your head.

Enjoy your humorless life.

[ancianita]

37. LOL Fresh from some DU Jury complaint, eh? Lurk more, lecture less.

[wordpix]

59. I know my inner city school's security inside and out. Trust me, there are holes

There are guards, there are metal detectors, there are locked doors. But there are holes in the security, big ones.

[ancianita]

60. Interesting. Perhaps factulty/ admins/ staff/ student bodies need an internal photo ID system. All

Chicago high schools have them, which really helps ID trespassers. Each school has many exits but only one main entrance. The large high schools with many doors have only one entrance per building. There are internal cameras in remote areas, paid for through fundraising groups -- alums, community people and the Local School Council.

[catbyte]

14. In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon..."

And in Michigan, too. Figures, LOL.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Ok, I see this will work...

[Chemisse]

17. This is one of the many reasons why there should be no guns in schools - none.

[goclark]

55. Former School Administrator Here

I am in favor of School Security -- just don't think Guns are the answer.

There generally are Security Plans in place for each school.
Without a doubt, each School District is working on a variety of Safety Measures that will address this critical issue.

[wordpix]

57. teacher in inner city schools here, I agree

[Chemisse]

65. If there must be enhanced security, I think it should come in the form of

Metal detectors at the doors. Intimidating and prisonlike, but preferable to guns inside the premises.

[goclark]

68. Absolutely agree!

[rhett o rick]

19. I am cornfused. Is he a good guy with a gun or a bad guy with a gun? nm

[petronius]

25. Neither - he doesn't have a gun...

[SirRevolutionary]

52. Crazy Wayne would tell you

he was a good guy with a gun, who became a good guy without a gun. Then I guess he was a bad guy without a gun until he got his gun back. Then Wayne would tell you the solution here is simple. Just hire another good guy with a gun to watch the first guy with/without his gun and from there... Owwww, my brain hurts now.

[thesquanderer]

21. Armed guards in schools. What could go wrong? (nt)

[jpak]

24. Dumbass charter schools + dumbass gun nuts = dead kids

yup

[Politicalboi]

26. The bullet was in his pocket

It's Barney Fife all over again.

[lexw]

28. What's to say these armed guards won't one day up and go nuts.

[wordpix]

58. it's a possibility for sure

[supercats]

32. Hilarious!!!

When I read the headline I burst out laughing....Tomorrow I believe is national gun awareness day, (or something like that). So I was thinking that the NRA should arm every student through high school, that shows up on monday, just for the day, so that they can bring ultimate safety to each and every school throughout America, and celebrate national gun awareness day in fashion.....what could go wrong?

[grahamhgreen]

36. Cops in schools = police state.

[underpants]

41. “made a breach in security protocol”

Newspeak

[AlbertCat]

42. “No harm, no foul,”

But there was a foul! There was a friggin' gun left in a bathroom!

[llmart]

44. Lapeer County, Michigan =

rightwing, teabagger, gun nutter area.

[caseymoz]

50. I'm waiting for one of these armed guards . . .

. . . or armed teachers to go postal. Let's face it, working with kids takes patience, teachers are underpaid, and the stress and work hours are can be tough.

So, do we really want to hand them the means to kill when they could have a bad moment?

[wordpix]

56. multiply this incident by thousands of harried teachers & principals carrying weapons

and you'll have an NRA wet dream

[goclark]

64. I think the Officers of the NRA should

install the weapons in the schools of their children/grandchildren.
Of course the NRA would pay for the Officers -- not the government!