Law enforcement leaders, SROs call for more school safety measures
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- In the wake of Wednesday morning's tragic shooting at a high school in Georgia, ABC11 is speaking with local law enforcement personnel and school resource officers about the state of school safety in the Triangle.
Across central North Carolina, several new safety measures have come online this year at various districts, from clear backpack policies to the launch of the "Say Something" app in Wake County -- to random security screenings at Nash County elementary schools.
"We do the best we can with what we got. But we do need better resources for mental health and to help some of the kids when they're going through stuff and not leading down this direction," said Desmond Barmore, an SRO with Southern Nash Middle School.
Barmore's been an SRO at the middle school for two years and said shootings like the one in Georgia sting all the more as a result.
"I think every law enforcement officer takes it personal; especially your SROs," he said. "Because we're in the schools every day. We're dealing with the kids. We've got a relationship with the kids and their families and the whole community."
The school where Barmore works was one of the schools in Nash County that introduced random security screenings via metal detectors last year. This Monday, ABC11 learned Nash County will expand those efforts, deciding to cover all elementary schools in the district based on feedback from parents and teachers.
Barmore said the measures help, but they're not enough. His boss, Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone, agrees.
"It takes more than technology, it takes relationships and professional law enforcement," Stone said.
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Sheriff Stone wants his county and others to take a more aggressive tack, one rooted in relationships like the ones he says Desmond has been able to build from the inside. He also wants to see Nash County follow Edgecombe County in consolidating its law enforcement response to school safety calls.
"You have two or three agencies that are responsible for this school and that school, and they're all in the same jurisdiction," Stone said. "You need one voice and one school and one place to call when an emergency happens."
Over in Durham County -- where DPS has two, 24/7 tip systems -- Sheriff Clarence Birkhead says they can't sit idly by until a similar tragedy takes place.
"I just think we're living on borrowed time. So when I hear these incidents happening all across the country, it saddens me," Birkhead said.
For Birkhead, that starts at home -- and with tackling the normalization of gun violence in the Bull City and beyond.
"When folks normalize these very tragic incidents, the reaction to me, in my opinion, the reaction slows. There's not enough outcry at the state level nor the federal level to do more," he said.
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