Tara Shipman was among the angry Apalachee High School parents and community members who made emotional pleas to the school district this week for increased safety measures in the wake of the deadly mass shooting.
The widespread concerns come nearly a month after suspected gunman Colt Gray, 14, brought an AR-15 rifle into the school on September 4 and killed two students and two teachers at the Winder, Georgia high school.
“My biggest thing is Colt Gray rode the bus with my child, and she was kind of devastated that he literally sat two seats in front of her and he carried not just a small gun, but a huge rifle with him for three hours before he executed his plan that could have just been avoided if he had a clear book bag,” Shipman said during the Barrow County School System meeting on Tuesday.
Nearly all of the speakers urged the board to mandate clear or mesh book bags and doorway metal or weapon detectors for students.
“He wouldn’t have been able to put it in there if we had mesh bags or if we had school bus monitors,” Shipman said. “Back when I was growing up, we had school bus monitors. Whether that was a senior at the school that was reliable or people that were in JROTC, there was some kind of reliable person that was a second set of eyes for the bus drivers because we have to think about their safety, too. It starts with those kids getting on the bus.”
AP Photo
Students returned to the high school on September 24 for half days and full-time classes will resume on October 14. Many speakers at the school board meeting said they feared preventive safety measures have still not been implemented upon their return to school.
Dr. Matt Thompson, the Chief of Staff of the Barrow County School System, did not say whether school officials are considering implementing a clear or mesh bookbag policy. Thompson did say the school is considering options such as metal detectors, but urged the community to be patient as they figure out logistics.
“Are they actually accurate at doing what they say they do? Spoiler alert: some of them are not,” Thompson said during the meeting. “The second piece of that is the efficiency at moving students in. We have to move nearly 2,000 students into our high schools efficiently every day. If you create a scenario where you have a backup at the beginning of the school as students are trying to process in and that goes out into the hallways or out into the outside of the building, you’ve created a very different security risk.”
Sean Schultz, who has two kids in the school district including one at Apalachee High School, urged officials to seriously consider the imperfect detectors.
“It was commented it’s not 100 percent accurate and I 100 percent agree with that,” Schultz said. “If we stop six out of 10, 60 percent, that is well worth it in my mind. They’re not that expensive.”
Pausing for a second, Schultz continued, “No offense to anybody, but the salaries that we pay out to have a board are well more than what a couple of metal detectors would be.”
Upon students’ return to Apalachee High School, the BCSS website stated it had implemented several immediate security measures, including increasing school resource officers and Georgia State Patrol officers’ presence on campuses.
Officials said they will evaluate long-term plans with input from local, state, and federal law enforcement. Students also had access to therapy dogs and additional mental health counselors.
Still, Schultz said, “My child doesn’t feel safe going back. It seems to be something like we threw a lot of extra officers and personnel at for the first week, and he’s [my son] already told me that most of them are not there anymore.”
Newsweek has contacted BCSS for comment.
Details Emerge About Colt Gray and His Parents
Colt Gray remains behind bars as he is charged with murder and will be tried as an adult in the fatal Apalachee High School Shooting.
Colt’s father, Colin Gray, was arrested following the school shooting. He faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children.
Colin Gray reportedly bought Colt the rifle he used in the school shooting as a Christmas gift even after the FBI visited their home for alleged online threats about shooting up a middle school.
Colt’s mother and Colin’s ex-wife, Marcee Gray, was indicted last month for elder abuse after she was accused of tying her mother, Deborah Polhamus, 73, to a chair and leaving her there for almost 24 hours, according to court documents shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ben Hill/Barrow County Sheriff’s Office
Polhamus was allegedly found after one of Marcee’s sisters, who lives in Florida, was unable to contact her in November 2023, and asked a friend to check on her at her home. There, Polhamus was found taped by the wrists and ankles to a chair and was freed by the family friend.
She was arrested in Barrow County and faces charges of exploiting and intimidating a disabled adult or elderly person, false imprisonment, second-degree criminal damage to property, and theft, as reported by WSB-TV. If found guilty, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
In December 2023, she was returned to Ben Hill County, where she was granted a $5,300 bond and released in April.
Marcee Gray has a lengthy criminal history dating back to March 2007, which includes five vehicle-related misdemeanors such as reckless driving, improper right turn, and DUI, according to The Independent.
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