Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers since 2011, noted that detectors don’t always keep weapons from getting into schools. He recommended more wide-ranging strategies to reduce violence.
Canady shared his insights with the Tampa Bay Times in a phone interview. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Is it a good idea to use weapon detection systems at all? Or do they create some sort of false sense of security that you think you’re being protected more than you are?
It’s a little like anything else that we use technology-wise. If we ever allow ourselves just to be completely dependent on that, then we probably are creating a false sense of security. ... The weapons detection systems really have to be utilized in conjunction with a more broad school safety and security process that has to be an extensive plan. ... Schools are probably among the most unique environments out there for us to try and secure because you’ve got a moving population on those campuses all day long every day during the school year, and the majority of those inhabitants are adolescents and so they can certainly be unpredictable. ...
Here’s the example. You or I could probably walk up to most school buildings in this country to a perimeter door, see a group of students walking by, knock on the door and there’s a high likelihood they’re going to open the door for us. ... You know, they’re just maybe trying to be nice or we maybe look professional so it’s like, oh, well they must belong here on campus. Or, the other direction then, even, is opening it for their fellow classmates. And you think about the number of situations that have occurred where someone has brought a weapon through a perimeter entrance even if the school was doing a good job at the main entrance of security. ... This takes a lot more time and effort than just installing the equipment. You have to build this culture and climate within your school environment that’s about school safety.
How do you do that? How do you get to a point where the school can feel safer? Can the school ever be 100 percent safe?
No. I don’t know of anywhere you can ever be 100 percent safe. I was a school resource officer one time when we had a murder in one of our schools. And I remember a parent asking me the next day, could I guarantee their child’s safety at school and the answer has to be no.
Now we can do things that certainly enhance the safety of that environment and make it an even safer place. So it really is, you’re talking about building blocks, really. ... It’s a multi-hazard approach and so let me say this: The security technologies can be a very effective part of that multi-hazard level approach, but creating a culture and climate within your school ... that can take weeks, months, years.
Is there a series or maybe two or three things that a school needs to do in that plan to make sure that they’re at least on the right track so that they’re doing enough to create that culture?
One of the top things is to secure the perimeter. Make sure that you’re doing the right things to encourage and educate people about not blocking perimeter doors open. You know, at about any school in America, I feel like I (can) walk up any day and somebody’s going to have a perimeter door propped, and that’s not safe. ... There has to be good policy and procedure about it. ...
Policy is really, really important around the issue of using weapons detection systems. Who is going to be responsible for it? Who’s going to operate it? Who’s going to be monitoring it? Who is going to be prepared to conduct the next level of search if the weapons detection system alerts? Those are things that would be really critically important.
There are some people who I’ve talked to who worry that it sends the wrong message, that security gates at the school make it sound like schools aren’t safe and there’s something that you can do to make them be safe. Are they correct in any way to say that? You know, maybe we’re just going too far?
I don’t think so. I think that it’s clear that schools are still a relatively very safe place for our kids. Have weapons incidents ticked up over the last six years in schools? They absolutely have. We can’t deny that. The evidence is there. So I guess the thought process would be, why not do what we can that is reasonable to try and keep weapons out of schools?
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