From his office at the Shawnee Mission school district administrative center, John Douglass, the district's director of safety and security, points to a sitting area in the hallway about 25 feet away.
It's the distance a trained police officer can typically shoot an assailant with accuracy, he says. Next, he points to a door farther down the hallway — a distance still much shorter than the typical hallway at a Shawnee Mission school.
”To expect that I could stop somebody with a pistol from here to there...." He doesn't finish his sentence.
Douglass cites the rising threat of active shooter situations as the reason why the district's police department has issued eight semi-automatic rifles to its district resource officers, who have operated separately from municipal police forces since 1972.
District resource officers, responsible for security across the entire district, help school resource officers, based in schools, keep students safe.
”This weapon is a very serious weapon for some very limited circumstances," said Douglass, the former chief of the Overland Park Police Department. ”You are never going to see it unless something really, really bad is happening."
Still, after a recent local report about the 2015 purchase of semi-automatic firearms, a year after Douglass took over his post, many parents learned for the first time that the district keeps these weapons at all.
The news angered some parents who were unnerved by the presence of assault weapons on school campuses. Some parents questioned their effectiveness as a safety measure.
”I don't fully believe one person with a bigger, badder gun is really going to make a huge difference in an active shooter situation in a school," parent Lisa Veglahn said. ”Why did they feel it was necessary over other types of weapons?"
Some viewed the investment as excessive at a time when teachers have classroom needs and administrative salaries have swelled. Many couldn't remember being informed or aware of the purchase in 2015.
”It's pretty offensive to me as a taxpayer to feel like you don't have any voice and you are being excluded from decisions that could harm your child or kill them," said Melissa Patt, the parent of three students in the Shawnee Mission School District. ”What else could we be spending our tax dollars on and getting the same safety results? Or is there evidence that it's worth it?"
Others saw the purchase as necessary at a time when mass killings, especially those on school campuses, have captured national attention.
”While we will continue to hope and pray that these weapons are never needed and can continue to be locked in a safe, what if they are?" Shawnee Mission parent Matt Trusty wrote in a Facebook post discussion with other parents, which he gave The Star permission to share. ”I would hope that in the event a real threat arose the person(s) deemed with keeping my children safe would have the tools and training to be able to do their job."
A semi-automatic rifle can be considered an assault-style weapon — a broad term used often to describe semi-automatics and automatic weapons used by both police and military officers. Semi-automatic rifles fire one bullet each time the trigger is pulled, while automatic weapons or machine guns continuously fire if the trigger is held down.
According to district records, in September 2015 the district ordered eight Smith & Wesson semi-automatic rifles for the seven district resource officers and one supervisor, whom Douglass oversees, on the district police force.
The purchase cost the district $5,671.04. Douglass said the most recently purchased rifles are typically kept securely in district police officers' cars. The school resource officers based in schools and employed by the city or county have also kept semi-automatic rifles securely in their cars as most patrol officers do, Douglass said.
While the Shawnee Mission School District appears to be the only school district in the metropolitan area that has purchased assault weapons, it is not the only school district whose police or resource officers have access to such firearms on a school campus.
Most local school districts, such as those in Lee's Summit and Olathe, have partnerships with police departments which arm campus police officers with weapons that any patrol officer might carry. A police force's ability to determine which weapons are appropriate is protected by law, said Laura Cutilletta, legal director for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
”The state tends to stay out of that decision and allow police chiefs to determine what's best for that force," Cutilletta said.
In Lee's Summit, school resource officers carry .40 caliber Glock pistols, spokesperson Janice Phelan confirmed. Blue Valley spokesperson Kaci Brutto said Blue Valley campus police and school officers carry the same pistol, and are not issued rifles. A Kansas City, Kan. schools spokesperson reiterated the same.
”We have never purchased or kept any long rifles or semi-automatic rifles on our campuses," said David Smith, spokesperson for Kansas City, Kan. schools. That district also has its own police force.
