School Shooting In Erie PA - Money For The Football Stadium But Not Security
On April 5, 2022, a student at Erie High School in Erie, Pennsylvania walked up to another student in the hallway at school, pulled a handgun, and opened fire. Five rounds were fired. Three struck the individual targeted in the abdomen and the legs. The two remaining rounds missed and fortunately did not hit anyone else in the crowded hallway. Both the shooter and the victim are under age. The victim is expected to survive.
Erie High School is another of the nation’s giant inner-city schools. Close to 2500 students go there. The surrounding area is economically depressed, and the crime rate is high. The crime rate in Erie overall is 2% above the national average. The violent crime rate is 28% above the national average.
The average household income in the school district is less than $38,000. In Pennsylvania overall it is $86,000.
School officials put the high school on lockdown after the shooting, with students and staff hiding in locked classrooms. Erie police responded to the scene, and the building was cleared. The shooter later turned himself in.
Erie High School has no metal detectors at the entrances to the school. Students are occasionally wanded by security officers but this is sporadic. Most of the focus on security in recent times has been on reducing the number of security officers in the school in line with the nationwide push to defund the police. Last year the Erie Public School Board asked the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to make recommendations on handling school security. The ACLU recommended among other things that the entire Erie School District police force be phased out and the budget allocated to hire counselors and social workers.
While Erie has not found the funds to install metal detectors or guarantee the safety of the students attending the school it has however tapped into literally millions of dollars in COVID relief money. In fact, in 2021 the Erie City School District received over $97 million in COVID relief. That breaks down to over $9000 per student.
With this money, Erie School District did all kinds of things, most of which did not seem to have anything to do with COVID. Money was found for new turf in the stadium, boilers, ventilation, and even paving. None was spent on keeping children safe.
Erie could not find money for security before, but it will now. The teacher’s union has weighed in and demanded improvements to security. The school is currently closed, and the teachers are refusing to return to in-person instruction "within the building," until the administration of Erie schools Superintendent Brian Polito installs metal detectors and undertakes other security improvements. In a letter to the school district, the union called the conditions at Erie High "fundamentally unsafe."
"Therefore," according to the letter, "be advised that beginning immediately and until certain processes and safeguards are in place to protect students and staff, the EEA membership shall be working remotely from home in the same way they did during district/building lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic."
Among the demands are the "installation of fully functioning metal detectors. Until that can be accomplished, all students shall be scanned with handheld electronic devices which detect weapons."
The letter also demands that the district immediately install "fully functioning" locks on doors, and provide fully functioning communication devices, such as walkie-talkies and phones. And the letter demands "an increase in security and/or police presence in highly visible and well-trafficked areas" at the Erie High.
These are the security upgrades that Erie schools Superintendent Brian Polito is now pursuing.
Metal detectors, for Erie High, Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, and East, Strong Vincent, and Wilson middle schools — $350,000. Detectors are already in place at the Patrick J. DiPaolo Student Success Center at Emerson-Gridley.
Locks at Erie High to allow doors to be locked from inside — $34,840.
Exterior door locks at Erie High — $121,000.
Forty additional security cameras at Erie High, which has 357 cameras — $19,460.
Security blinds on windows at Erie High — $115,000.
New gym door and partitions at Erie High — $54,978.
Intrusion alarm and door alarms at Erie High — $341,682.
That’s $350,000 dollars for metal detectors at five schools. The district spent almost $2.5 million on renovating the football stadium with “COVID money”.
The lack of rationality and responsibility in all this is terrifying. The federal government has literally sprayed money at states, cities, and schools claiming it was somehow related to fighting COVID. In fact, it has been spent on pretty much anything without any concern for a connection to the supposedly dire ongoing pandemic.
Meanwhile, pressing needs like keeping guns out of schools are simply neglected. The victim in this shooting will recover it appears. He might not have been so lucky. The next kid shot may leave the school for the morgue.
Not to mention no action (nationwide) on addressing root causes, the mere mention of which is verboten. Guns (nor access to) are a root cause; the root cause is what drives someone to pull the trigger.
Drivers include mass illegitimacy and lack of positive father figures; Hollywood and music industry promotion of "gangsta" culture rather than positive role models; and Cultural Marxism promoting fabricated "White privilege" and "systemic racism" as false diagnoses of root causes.