It is time to look for safety for children
Security measures do not always prevent weapons from entering schools. On March 7, a 17-year-old boy was killed and another was shot in a school in Birmingham, Alabama. In a school with metal detectors, however, they were not used that day. A 17-year-old boy was charged with homicide. In February, two students were shot and three others were injured by accidentally shooting a gun that someone was carrying in their backpack at a school in Los Angeles.
Another circumscription that periodically uses metal detectors. On that occasion, a 12-year-old girl was accused of entering a weapon at school.According to the attorney for the Michigan Civil Liberties Union Racial Justice Project, Mark Fancher, metal detectors are seen as a symptom of a stigma that already exists.
After the February 14 massacre at Parkland High School, many are the parents who, although living very close to school, accompany their children by car because they fear for their safety. The case of Alondra Álvarez, who lives about five minutes walk from the high school where she studies in Detroit is one of them.
Upon entering the building, this 18-year-old girl goes through metal detectors and begins to feel more secure. According to Álvarez, a student at Western International, her mother never liked it when she walked to school. Many bullies in the street scare him. Schools throughout the country that plan to implement security measures as a result of the massacre of 17 people by young adult Nikolas Cruz, can follow the example of Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Schools in these large cities have installed metal detectors and other measures that were taken in the 1980s and 1990s to combat the violence associated with gangs and drugs.
From the point of view of security experts, these measures have made shooting with many deaths less feasible, which have occurred mostly in suburban and rural districts. One month after the Parkland massacre, thousands of students left their classrooms for 17 minutes, meaning every minute a victim of the tragic event, in protest of violence with weapons and to apply a law that restricts the use of them.
According to the president of the National African-American Arms Association, Philip Smith, he believes that schools in urban centers are light years ahead. They have faced violence for a long time.Since the 80s, Detroit is one of the first school districts that bet on the installation of metal detectors in primary and secondary schools. Some schools in New York also had them.
According to the director of a district with 50,000 students in public schools in Detroit, Nikolai Vitti, the purpose they pursue with this is to identify and prevent someone from attaching a weapon to the school, although metal detectors alone generate the illusion of security. Vitti said that it is also important to have enough personnel, to assist people with mental disorders and to train educators in first aid techniques.
