Trying to Defuse School Violence
COSTELLO: This morning, the search for a way to heal at Sandy Hook Elementary continues. Demolition crews will begin destroying the Connecticut grade school where a gunman killed 26 people. Last year's massacre added new urgency to the debate over gun violence and school safety. Also this morning students are returning to class at Danvers High School. A teacher was killed at the Boston area school earlier this week a 14-year-old student is now charged in her murder. And just two days before that another deadly explosion of violence this time at a middle school in Sparks, Nevada. Police say a 12-year- old student shot three people killing a teacher and then killing himself. So we want to take a couple of minutes now to discuss school violence and the search for answers. Douglas Fuchs is the police chief in Redding, Connecticut and some of his officers rushed to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary and now share lessons learned. And Colonel Michael Edmonson is with the Louisiana State Police. This week both men focused on school violence at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference. Welcome to you both.</s>COL. MICHAEL EDMONSON, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE: Good morning.</s>CHIEF DOUGLAS FUCHS, REDDING, CONNECTICUT POLICE: Good morning.</s>COSTELLO: Good morning. First of all, I just want to gauge how afraid parents should be for their kids in school because it seems that we're experiencing a lot of these shootings across the country. So I'll pose that question to you, Chief Fuchs.</s>FUCHS: I have to say that I'm not sure that "scared" is the right word. I can say "bewildered" is probably better. Many folks in Newtown where I live were bewildered that these senseless acts of violence continue to take place in our society. And you know as I was dropping my daughter off to school this morning she knew I was coming to this interview and she asked me why. And I said it's important to get the message out. It's important to talk about this so hopefully we can prevent this from happening in the future. And she again asked me why, and she said, "Dad, you can talk all you want, they're never going to change."</s>COSTELLO: How old is your daughter?</s>FUCHS: 16.</s>COSTELLO: See that makes me really sad. Colonel Edmonson, is there an answer, I know police chiefs from across the world got together. So this problem isn't just the United States problem I assume.</s>EDMONSON: No it's not and we talked about that with the National Association of Chiefs of Police. Also my governor here in Louisiana, Governor Jindal we're constantly talking about public safety. But you know when you look at our schools across the nation, I believe they are safe. And what we've got to sit there and think about is not just trying to predict when things are going to happen, but we've got to prevent those things from happening. That's threat assessments, that's working in partnership with your local police agencies. That's understanding where when you go to a school where the programs are and where the classrooms are and knowing how to get there and knowing how to get there very quickly. Active shooter training, education but it's also about talking to our kids. I mean they're going to tell us when things are going wrong, when things are going to happen. You've got to have that -- that conversation with the students, the teachers have to be engaged. The faculty has to be engaged. To be able to understand when a child sees something, they've got to feel comfortable in saying something. So think that's what's you got to look at.</s>COSTELLO: But one of the interesting things that came out of this conference and I guess I'll address this to you Chief Fuchs is that we have to start teaching children not to run and hide, but to run and fight. The question I have is, how do you teach a 6-year-old that?</s>FUCHS: And you're exactly right. We've really changed the way we've looked at school safety. It's prevention which goes back to making sure people secure their weapons in their homes. Because if they didn't have access to those weapons, they wouldn't be brought to school. It's deterrence. And we know that law enforcement presence makes a difference. And especially in our part of the world you've seen a lot of school districts put school-based officers, or SROs (ph), in and around the schools because we know that our presence changes people's behavior. Over 50 percent of the time when law enforcement respond to an active shooter, that shooter takes their own life before they challenge is. And a vast majority of the rest of the time, we're able to neutralize that threat or take them into custody beforehand. And as you talked about training we used to train people to lock themselves down and hide. And that's just not working unfortunately. We are now training to run, to hide and to fight. And if you can run, you run as fast and you run as far as you possibly can. In the morning of December 14th I picked up four teachers on the way to Sandy Hook school. They did just that, they ran until they found safety. They didn't have kids in their classroom they were in the back of the school and they ran and that works. If that doesn't work, then you lock down and you hide. And we're teaching our educators how to better fortify their classrooms so that it's tougher to get in. Better compartmentalization within the school. But when all else fails, we're also now teaching them to fight. And I have to tell you, I don't like that. I know the educators really don't like that. But we just don't have any other choice.</s>COSTELLO: So -- so Colonel when - when Chief Fuchs says fight, what does that mean? Does that mean throwing something at the gunman? I mean what does that mean?</s>EDMONSON: I think it's doing everything you can to get the attention away from that gunman. But you've got to have constant conversation not only with the police, but also with the kids. And I think that's where the -- the education has got to be ongoing. It can't be, well we've done enough now and let's just stop that. It's got to be a continual basis. And that communication is so important we're doing it constantly as police officers, continually doing those threat assessments, as trying to look at ways we can prevent things from happening because it's about that pro-active approach. And you're right about that 6-year-old. I mean I've got four kids and to have that constant communication to where you've got to be engaged with them so they can feel comfortable. But we also have to find that that happy medium. Because when a parent puts a kid off at a school bus, they ought to feel safe. When that child is going to a school, that parent ought to say, you know what, I feel comfortable that my child is going to be safe in that school. So you've got to find that happy medium where you -- where you certainly educate the parent but educating those kids and have that communication where they -- where they talk to those teacher and they say, hey, what do I do in a situation like this? And putting in on their level so they understand what they need to do. And from a police perspective, educating the police to make sure they get somewhere very quickly, very pro-active. They were looking at prevention of things from happening and also those threat assessments. That's got to be something that we continually talk about within the IACC but also with police officers across this country and across this world.</s>COSTELLO: Well Colonel Michael Edmonson and Chief Douglas Fuchs thank you so much for sharing this information. It's very helpful thank you so much.</s>EDMONSON: Thank you.</s>FUCHS: Thank you.</s>COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM we spoke to her on week one of the Obamacare website launch. And after delays and numerous phone calls, she still has not been able to enroll in a health insurance plan. We'll find out what Terry O'Neal is going to do now.