After a rash of school arrests, Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna is fed up with students violating the district’s top zero tolerance policy: No weapons on campuses.
After a year of launching a “see something, say something campaign,” launching AI weapons detecting technology and deploying a weapon detecting dog for surprise visits, the superintendent is ready to launch a new extreme deterrent: activating metal detection systems at the entrance of each high school.
“I’ve had enough,” Hanna said at Monday’s School Board meeting.
So have the elected school leaders.
“I think this conversation is well timed because I don’t think any of us have seen the beginning of a school year that has had the types of reports that we have had,” board member Darryl Jones said.
A shocking burst of weapons arrests on Leon County Schools campuses
So far this year there have been three weapons related arrests on school campuses and a fourth outside a marquee high school football game at Gene Cox stadiums — all in a span of two school days.
On Friday, Aug. 22 there were two weapons arrests at different campuses. At Godby High School a student was arrested by the Leon County Sheriff’s Office after a firearm was discovered in his bag. A teen at Rickards High was arrested after she was found with pepper spray and a taser in her bag.
On Monday, a student was arrested at Lincoln High School after being questioned by Tallahassee police officers for carrying ammunition over the weekend. It was discovered the student had a handgun in his parked car on campus.
And, on Aug. 26, Tallahassee police reported the Aug. 22 arrest of a 17-year-old just outside Gene Cox Stadium during the Godby and Rickards football game. After further investigation, two other weapons were discovered in a nearby vehicle in relation to a group of teens.
Security ramped up at schools with vote on metal detectors coming
The request to activate metal detectors will go before the school board on Sept. 9.
“For now, we have increased our district presence on our high school campuses,” Hanna told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Leon County School Board Member Marcus Nicolas asked Hanna to also invite representatives from LCSO and the Council on the Status of Men and Boys to give their insight on what could be causing students to violate the policy and carry weapons.
“I think that this conversation is at the right time, right place,” Nicolas said.
Leon County Schools’ District Chief Jimmy Williams said after meeting with students who were caught with weapons at school, he’d ask them “why did you bring a gun to school?”
“I’m convinced the majority of the guns that we have found in our schools over the last seven years were brought for protection to get to school and get home,” Williams said.
Bringing a weapon of any kind on a Leon County Schools campus is a felony offense, and students could face consequences as severe as expulsion according to the district’s discipline matrix.
Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter/X: @AlaijahBrown3.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Leon County high schools may get metal detectors amid spike in weapons arrests
Reporting by Alaijah Brown, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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