2 Texas School Security Officers Fired for Leaving Unattended Guns on Campus
One Fort Bend ISD officer left their gun in a bathroom, while another officer left theirs in a fifth-grade classroom.
Image via Adobe, by woodsnorth
FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas – Two Fort Bend ISD elementary school security officers have been fired for leaving their firearms unattended at the schools they were hired to protect.
The two unattended gun incidents happened weeks apart from each other. The first happened in January in a staff bathroom at Sullivan Elementary. The second incident happened in February in an empty classroom at Sugar Mill Elementary, reports Houston Public Media.
No students touched either of the unattended guns.
In the first incident, a teacher found the gun in the staff bathroom and notified administrators, reports ABC13. In the second incident, after the gun was left in the fifth-grade classroom, it was discovered by students and a teacher when they returned to class. The security officer realized a few minutes later that they had left their gun in the classroom and returned to retrieve it.
Both officers were recently hired by two private security companies: Andy Frain Services and Veterans Service America. Both officers were deployed so the schools would be incompliance with House Bill 3, a new law that requires schools to have armed security on every K-12 campus.
Although Fort Bend ISD already had police officers on its middle school and high school campuses, to save money, it hired contracted security guards to work at its 51 elementary schools.
In response to both incidents, the officers will no longer work on school campuses, and the district will reinforce its protocols with contracted armed security personnel.
This isn’t the first time a gun has been left unattended at a school in Texas. Last year, Rising Star Independent School District Superintendent Robby Stuteville submitted his resignation after he left his firearm in a bathroom that was then discovered by a third grader.
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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Oddly enough leaving a gun in a restroom doesn’t only happen to incompetent Police. It also frequently happens to incompetent armed civilians. So often in fact that articles are written for these morons telling them how to go potty safely with their firearms.
For companies providing “security officers” for schools I recommend that their qualification requirements include safe bathroom behavior. I can’t believe I just wrote this.
I feel it is the responsibility of any armed officer to take full responsibility for their weapons. It is far too easy to get carried away looking for bad actors, that some forget they are also an armed persona in their community, and their own weapon should be treated with strict prudence. The weapon is not good nor evil, but the results of a shooting can be equally and instantly tragic, no matter its impetus.