39-year-old Harold Verdecia, a former infantryman in the US army who completed tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, patrols the hallways of Manatee strapped with a 9mm Glock 19X and a Kel-Tec "Bullpup" rifle, according to the Herald Tribune.
Verdecia isn't there to get to know the kids, break up fights or do the typical community-policing that school resource officers typically do, said MSA Principal Bill Jones."When seconds count, (Palmetto police) are only a few minutes away," says Principal Jones - who has gamed out the nightmare school shooter scenario in exacting detail. He's also justified Verdecia's use of a semi-automatic rifle instead of just a handgun.
Verdecia has one job: Stop an active shooter. -Herald Tribune
"We're not looking for a fair fight," Jones said in an interview cited by the New York Times. "We're looking at an overwhelming advantage."
With a shooter just 100 feet away, there aren't many officers who could take the suspect down with a handgun, according to Jones. With a rifle, however, Verdecia could make that shot with hollow-point bullets designed to flower on impact and shred the shooter's internal organs instead of exiting his body and hitting someone else.
In order to become a guardian, Verdercia completed the 144-hour training course that the Manatee County Sheriff's Office ran for the school district, plus additional training to be qualified to carry the rifle. District general counsel Mitch Teitelbaum said while school district guardians are trained using 9-millimeter Glocks, charter schools have the freedom to arm their guardians with other weapons.To protect himself from incoming fire, Verdecia wears body armor.
Despite his status as perhaps the most lethal guardian in Manatee County, Verdecia is soft spoken and quietly dedicated to his task. He estimated he walks 9 miles a day, patrolling the vast campus.
Jones said Verdecia earns more than $50,000 a year, plus benefits, to protect the more than 2,000 students at MSA. He is hoping to hire another guardian soon, and Jones was reviewing applications in his office on Thursday. -Herald Tribune
To hire Verdecia and his new co-worker, MSA took advantage of a law passed by Florida lawmakers in the wake of last February's shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School requiring all schools to have armed security. Most districts achieved this through a combination of school resource officers and guardians - and most just carry handguns, according to the Herald Tribune. Principal Jones justifies the decision to arm Verdecia with a rifle. "It's just a much more effective weapon than the handgun is."
Security expert Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International, says he is not aware of any other school guards who carry long guns, though it is commonplace in some foreign countries.
"It's not something that we typically advise our clients to do for a variety of reasons," said Dorn, noting that someone might knock the officer out and take the weapon, and it's not as easy to subdue and handcuff someone while carrying a rifle.
Not everyone agrees with MSA's approach to school safety, according to the Herald Tribune.
"You don't walk around with an assault rifle strapped to your chest in a school. That is not the normal policy of police agencies," said retired police chief Walt Zalisko, who now owns a Daytona Beach-based global investigative group and police management consulting business.
Zalisko said it is best practice to keep rifles locked up within a police car or in a secure location, and he said guardians or school resource officers are more effective when they are able to regularly engage with students, rather than viewing their job as solely stopping a mass shooter.Principal Jones, meanwhile, said he has worked closely with Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler to develop MSA's guardian program - efforts which Tyler has given his blessing.
"His job is to protect the kids, and he can do that with a handgun, but it is also to form positive relationships," Zalisko said. "Develop information on who may have drugs or weapons. There is a lot involved." -Herald Tribune
"Assault rifles, whether you are for them or against them, are prolific in our society," Tyler said. "Lord knows how many assault-type rifles are out there. So why would we not want the school guardian to have parity with that potential threat?"
Jones says that most people have responded positively to Verdecia's presence on campus aside from occasional complaints, and that Verdecia's status as a former combat veteran has had a lot to do with it.
"I wouldn't hire anybody who hadn't been shot at and fired back," said Jones. "I need someone who has been in that situation."
There, the responding cops were 'ORDERED' to not go into a school that was being actively shot up while they waited for the SWAT team’s armed troop carrier to be loaded up, or such. (At MSD, one or two cops were disciplined, as I recall, for going into the school to try to rescue the kids! Argh! Meanwhile, according to reports (by folks who've never been in a gunfight, I presume) the armed ‘School resource officer’ supposedl displayed Fastolfian** cowardice by failing to confront the shooter. However, he may have been aware of the mantra of what a pistol's primary use is for: "fighting your way back to the rifle you never should have left behind in the first place.) That certainly supports the prinicipal's point aboutt the need for a rifle for the declared purpose. And at least those deadly screw ups are far less likely now to happen at MSA.
I happened to be living in San Diego County in 1984 when scumbag whoever (I'd prefer to not reinforce names of infamous scumbag murderers) decided to go 'human hunting' at the San Ysidro McDonalds. (Indeed, my brother and I had stopped there about 2 weeks earlier after a surfing trip to Baja California.) The Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) Snipers at the scene could see him walking around - it was a McDonalds, for Christ's sake, and everyone else was down and hiding, or dying, or dead - and while the bosses et al 'tried to talk him out", I believe two or three LEO snipers had him
sighted in and were waiting for the green light for quite a while. At least they finally got it. (I would guess that one would do head shot(s), the other, heart shot(s); and I imagine there’s likewise some protocol for what a third sniper should aim at.)
While the chiefs dawdled, innocent people who had been shot were dying on the floors from bleeding out. If the snipers had been promptly given the green light, it's likely that less than twenty people would have died there.
Then, when I'd moved back to Florida, a similar situation occurred at a Winn Dixie in Palm Bay, Florida around 1986. Unfortunately, they did manage to 'talk that bastard out', and the taxpayers of Florida have now paid tens of millons to prosecute and jail him - he is STILL on death row! - when the two or three snipers could have taken him out at a then-cost of about 20 cents or less a round, even for the more expensive frangible hollow points, as referenced in the above article.
During that event, he held a girl captive by her arm, but his rifle in his other hand was not even pointing towards her and they were standing side by side.. Moreover, before he got into the store, he had already killed two cops who were first on the scene, in an event similar to what Harvey Keitel ("Mr. White") does with two S&W 9mms in 'Reservoir Dogs' except the killer was using a semi-automatic rifle.) [FWIW, a dear friend - (RIP) - had been, as I recall, the swimming coach in high school for each of them. }
If I had kids in the above MSA school, that would be one less worry, as far as I am concerned.
Of course, the article provides plenty of quotes from the P.C. LEO-crowd of ‘only cops should have guns’; and that even they should be unavailable for cops to use for at least two minutes, or such. (Should be secured and locked in the car, etc.)
The principal’s point about a rifle’s accuracy is likewise dead on.
R.C.
*(I am above presuming that the 'official story ' is reasonably true - despite its curious facts and coincidences, such as the MSM having a ready to go on the Anti Gun Rant, Master Hogg, who is the child of an FBI agent, which, as I recall is similar to some of the characters involved / associated with the Columbine massacre., - I forget the relationships there.)
A Federal Judge there - again as I recall - further ordered all of those records sealed for 50? years! Why? That too is suspicious in and of itself.)
** Not a typo. In King Henry VI, Part 1, A true historical character, Sir John Fastolf, is charged with cowardice, might well have not been a fair representation. Thus, I refer to the play and not the man.
R.C.