Shots Fired in Douglas County

The+Douglas+County+District+Building+

The Douglas County District Building

Bryce Oppenheimer, Ranger Review Reporter

On April 18th the Douglas County District bought 10 semi-automatic rifles for their school security. The director of security, Richard Payne, said that the decision was his alone, and he did not discuss this with the school board.

This push for higher security is an attempt to make the Douglas County security a full fledged group of law enforcement. The members of security will attend multiple safety classes including “hand to hand” combat involving the long rifles.

They will not be in the schools,” said Payne. “One accident in close quarters with these things could be devastating, not only to predators but to the students themselves, I would make sure the decision is supported politically and socially.”

The news of this has affected the mind-set of other districts. Schools are now wondering if this type of firepower is needed for a high level of security. The principal of Lewis-Palmer High School believes that this high of security is not needed for Lewis-Palmer.

“I can’t speak for Douglas County because I do not know the details of their school policies. I also don’t want to make any judgement calls for Douglas County regarding the assault rifles but we are so close to local law enforcement I believe we would never be put into the same situation as Douglas County is in right now,” Brandl said. “I believe that we are looking at adding a director of security position for the school so that is definitely a step into the right direction in terms of security.”

The district spokeswoman, Paula Hans, is making sure that the security members will be taking extra precautions to keep the guns out of reach of everybody except the security team. The Guns will be locked into the security vehicles and not inside of the schools. The only time these weapons will accessed is during emergency situations that call for such force.