It’s a question we would all rather not have to think about, but this is the world we live in. And at this time, the answer that Superintendent Millard House gave to that question was not reassuring.
Houston ISD’s police department would not be prepared should Texas’ largest school district be targeted by active shooter, Superintendent Millard House II said Thursday night.
“I don’t know that this has garnered community insight but what I do know is that, if there was an active shooter in HISD, our police department is not prepared,” House said during an agenda review meeting.
His remarks were in response to questioning from Trustee Dani Hernandez regarding an item the board is expected to vote on during next week’s meeting for purchase of items worth more than $100,000. The specific agenda item includes various purchases for the school district’s police department.
House said the district would be buying 200 rifles, 200 ballistic plate shields and rifle ammunition.
“As we study the Uvalde scenario and looked at what … proper preparation that needs to be in place, officers would not have been prepared for what that looks like,” House said.
[…]
Hernandez asked what research was guiding HISD, instead of feelings. House asked HISD police Chief Pete Lopez to share information in response to her question.
Lopez said research showed police who were better prepared helped in stopping a shooter faster. He was confident about training the district’s police force — estimated to be more than 200 employees — had received. But he did “not have a lot of confidence in preparing our officers to encounter a suspect without the proper equipment.” He said they needed scenario-based training to learn how to respond to such a threat.
The school district has about 195,000 students.
“The equipment that I’ve requested is to provide additional training to teach the officers how to breach the doors, how to use those shields and also quickly enter that room and neutralize the suspect,” Lopez said. “And of course save our students and our staff.”
Like I said, nobody wants to have to think about this. Given that we have to, there are two things that I want to know up front, based on what we have witnessed from Uvalde. One is that there is always a clear definition of who is in command at such a scene. While it’s unlikely that DPS and Border Patrol would show up at an HISD school wit an active shooter, HPD and the Sheriff’s office will almost certainly have officers on the scene. Make sure that there is a written policy that says who is the leader, so that we don’t have a nightmare situation where dozens of cops are waiting around for someone to tell them what to do. And two, the policy must also state that the top priority is going after the shooter, again to avoid a repeat of what happened at Robb Elementary. Everything else, from best practices to training to equipment to whatever else can be provided for. First and foremost, we have to make sure that there’s a commitment to stop the person or persons responsible for the shooting. You wouldn’t think this is a thing that needs to be said, and to be clearly spelled out in an official document for which there would be severe consequences for now following it, but it is and we do. So let’s make sure we have one. Campos has more.
I’m not sure HISD police are the right agency to respond to an active shooter. The officers are spread all over the district, and will take some time to get to the site of an incident. They should be trained on how to respond as a single officer waiting for backup – Call HPD/HCSO, evaluate the situation, take action if it’s feasible, be prepared to give an accurate report on what’s happening when the larger team arrives.
I think it would be a better plan to call HPD and HCSO and have their SWAT teams respond, and take over as incident commander. There’s no reason for HISD police(or any other agency that’s not HPD or HCSO) to try to form a SWAT type team.
All of the HISD officers should have training as required, know where keys are or have keys for their school and the nearest 4 or 5 schools, know the layouts of the schools with a binder in the officer’s vehicle containing multiple copies of school drawings for their school and the nearest schools. I’m sure there are other items that are needed, perhaps breaching tools or a shield.
What we don’t want is a single officer rushing into the school by him/herself, only to be taken out by the shooter.