By WESLIE STRATTON
Moapa Valley Progress
School security was a key topic of discussion at the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board regular meeting on Wednesday, April 15 in Overton. Local resident Metro officer Shanan Kelly represented the Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB) in a presentation on school security for the community’s four schools.
Kelly explained to the board that he was appointed by MVCEAB to head up a subcommittee for school safety to help kids to be safe at school. He began his presentation with a scenario that took place at Spring Valley High School on Nov. 13, 2014.
He said that on that day, shots were fired at the school and it was put on lockdown. The school had resource officers from CCSD police present who were able to have both the interior and exterior of the school checked and cleared in five minutes. The officers discovered that noises that had been mistaken for gut shots had come from a construction site across the street. Dispatched Metro officers who had been called when the incident first took place showed up nine minutes after the supposed shooting.
“Is nine minutes fast enough?” Kelly asked the board.
He said that response time to emergency situations at the local schools is lacking. He explained that local resident officers cover 3,000 square miles. It could take 45 minutes or more for a resident officer to respond to a school emergency, he said.
Kelly said that a recent state law made it legal for school teachers and parents to carry a firearm while in school. But the school district has prohibited employees or volunteers from carrying firearms into local schools, he said.
He provided statistics that said that in the last 15 years there have been 146 school shootings with 197 resulting fatalities and 147 injuries. He said that there were 40 school shootings in 2014 alone.
“It’s not pleasant to talk about but it’s the ugly truth,” he said, adding that since 1992 there have been seven shootings in Nevada schools.
Kelly told the board that Moapa Valley High School is one of the only high schools in the district that does not have a resource officer.
“Why not?,” he asked, “Are our kids less important?”
He suggested a full-time resident Metro officer for Moapa Valley schools to be a physical deterrent to shooters and those wishing to harm students at school and also to help decrease response times in the event of an emergency.
When school is out for the summer that officer would be another needed officer on the street, Kelly said. He is requesting a Metro officer to fill this position due to the training required. He said he is requesting a senior officer specifically “who knows how to handle the ugly” and has real experience in threatening situations.
“We’re looking for a no response time,” he said.
Kelly said that he and MVCEAB are asking for community support and for the support of the MVTAB to take this issue to Metropolitan Police Department, the County Commission and the Clark County School District to make a resource officer in local schools a reality.
MVTAB member Gene Houston made a motion to have a letter of support in approval of a local resource officer drafted to be approved and signed by the board and sent to the Clark County Commission.
The motion was approved unanimously.
