Los Fresnos Consolidated School District law enforcement officers on Tuesday were trained on how to respond to active shooters on campuses.
The training came a week before students return to the classroom for the fall semester.
Armed officers went through hallways of Los Cuates Middle School during the training. Afterward, they briefed on what actions they took. The training was provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other agencies.
Keeping the students, teachers, staff, and administrators safe at LFCISD is top priority and officials want to make sure the public is aware that the district is doing everything it can to keep everyone safe, said Jimmy McDonough, deputy superintendent of operations.
Los Fresnos students return to school Monday.
The district’s Board of Trustee in May or early June approved the hiring of nine additional officers for its police department, in an effort to ensure that every school in the district would have an armed police officer. The district now has 18 armed officers.
The hiring of the new officers will add over $400,000 in recurring salary cost.
“The board made the quick decision to hire them. It made a world of difference of us being able to fill (those positions),” McDonough said. “If that initiative would have gotten approved in late June or July, I don’t think we would have been able to hire all of these officers. It would have been impossible. Basically, kudos to the superintendent and the board of trustees. Together, they made that decision and let us immediately start hiring.”
LFCISD has 14 campuses and a student population of about 11,000.
“We’ve always had police officers stationed at secondary campuses, but for our elementary campuses they were basically patrolled, so they were not stationed full time,” McDonough said. “Now with the new initiative there will be a full-time police officer stationed on every single elementary campus. That’s the biggest single initiative.”
Many school districts around the state and nation vamped up security following the May 24 massacre at an Uvalde Middle school, just days before the school year was to end for summer. In that shooting, former student of the Uvalde School District, armed with an assault rifle walked into Robb Elementary School and gunned down 19 students and two teachers.
It was one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings.
“A lot of things were already in place but definitely Uvalde, definitely, spurred all districts to take a hard look on where can we approve,” McDonough said.
McDonough said right after the Uvalde school shooting the district began receiving calls from concerned parents wanting to make sure their child would be safe while attending school. The district immediately used its social media platforms to let the public know what the district was doing to keep the students safe.
“We have the equipment and firepower in place right now to respond to an active shooter,” McDonough said.
In 2006, the LFCISD police department responded to an active shooter call in which a student at one of the middle schools had taken a gun to school and fired it off, said Joe Vasquez, the district’s police chief, who has been with the police department for 12 years.
It so happened that a law enforcement ceremony was taking place at a nearby park and police from several different agencies responded to the school.
“No one was injured. The student surrendered. I was the second officer on the scene. Cameron County was already in the hallway when I came in. There was two of us there,” Vasquez said.
McDonough said the jobs of the officers at the schools is to make sure the schools are safe. They will walk around the school checking doors to make sure they are locked. They will be checking fences to see if they had tampered with. Information regarding to doors that are not locked and if fences have been tampered with will be provided to the administration of that school.
The district has security cameras at all campuses, and the administration and police officers always have access to them. The cameras have been tested during the summer, and the district is adding more cameras to eliminate blind spots.
All campuses have gates and security, video intercom systems and automated door looks. In addition, they have what are called Raptor Systems, which help identify school visitors. The visitor provides a valid identification card at the front desk, and the ID is scanned in the Raptor System. The Raptor System is linked to a law enforcement data basis that will alert the campus if the visitor is barred from visiting a campus. If the visitor is cleared, they are provided with an ID that they must wear while on school grounds.
New this year are alarms that have been placed on doors that will sound if a door has been propped open for more than 60 seconds. The alarm is up to “80 decibels” and will alert school staff if a door has been propped open.
Each campus will have secure box at the front of every campus that will contain master keys for the building. All local law enforcement will be provided with a code to the box, which will provide them with immediate access to the keys.
LFCISD has met with other law enforcement agencies in Cameron County—such as the constables, sheriff’s department, Rancho Viejo Police Department and Texas Department of Public Safety—and all have agreed to provide backup to the district should their help be needed.
At least four of Los Fresnos’ elementary schools are outside the city limits.
“We have MOU’s (Memorandum of Understanding) in place with all of the surrounding jurisdictions as far as the law enforcement agencies,” McDonough said.
“We have called them to so many meetings. They come, they show up, but I think the biggest thing that I feel, and I think that Joe feels, is they have said, ‘We are going to respond, we are going to go in. There isn’t going to be any hesitation. We are going to respond, and we are going to engage the suspect.’ I felt very good with that,” McDonough said.
