Unlocked and broken doors at Uvalde, Texas school were open invitation for mass killers as they were in Sandy Hook. Even with unlocked door, police waited outside an hour for a key-AP

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“The teacher did close the door, but unbeknownst to her, it could be locked only from the outside.”…The 18-year-old gunman entered through a door that could only be locked from the outside. Then he cruised into a classroom whose door had a broken lock.…“There was “zero obstacle to the shooter.”…”A teacher reported before the shooting that the lock was broken.”...“Despite the door being unlocked, there was no indication officers tried to open it during the standoff.…Police instead waited for more than an hour for a key.”…At Sandy Hook massacre 10 years ago, the doors of the two classrooms “could only be locked from the hallway with a key.”…..

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6/22/22, “Unlocked doors were ‘first line of defense’ at Uvalde school," AP, Heather Hollingsworth

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“A section of a classroom door from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is seen as Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw testifies at a Texas Senate hearing at the state capitol, Tuesday, June 21, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Two teachers and 19 students were killed in last month’s mass shooting in Uvalde. (AP Photo)”

“The Uvalde massacre began after the 18-year-old gunman entered the school through

a door that could only be locked from the outside

then got inside a classroom

that had a busted lock, 

experts testified Tuesday.

Securing doors has long been

a focus of school safety drills,

and the inability to do so during the May 24 attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead is raising alarms

among experts and

politicians. [Not parents? Not taxpayers who pay all the salaries and expenses? Not all normal people?]

When doors are not secure, “your first step,

your first line of defense has now been eliminated,” said Ken Trump, the president of the National School Safety and Security Services.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt said

unlockable doors make lockdowns and shooter training worthless, adding that

there was “zero obstacle to the shooter.”

Questions about how the shooter entered Robb Elementary and what happened at multiple doors have been a big part of the changing information about the attack.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE GUNMAN REACHED THE OUTSIDE DOOR?

State police initially said the gunman entered the school through

an exterior door

that had been propped open by a teacher.

Days later, state police retracted that statement to make it clear that

the teacher closed the door.

But somehow it didn’t lock.

Nearly a month after the rampage, Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, further amended what his agency’s investigation shows:

The teacher did close the door,

but unbeknownst to her,

it could be locked only from the outside.

The gunman “walked straight through,” McCraw said Tuesday in blistering testimony at a state Senate hearing in Austin.

Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, said he was

“astonished” that the exterior door could only be locked from the outside.

He likened it to a house that could only be locked from the outside.

“Shouldn’t the security of the school be as safe as the security of your home?” he asked.

Experts did not explain during the hearing why the school’s exterior door locked from outside. Robb Elementary is an older building, constructed in 1955.

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE GUNMAN REACHED THE CLASSROOM DOOR?

Once inside the school, the shooter then entered a classroom though a door that was designed to be locked from the outside, according to McCraw, who also said a teacher reported before the shooting that

the lock was broken.

“This is ridiculous and it’s inexcusable,” McCraw said of

the fact that the classroom door could not be locked from inside.

Stephens and Trump also raised alarms about

the fact that the door was broken, describing it as a maintenance issue.

McCraw also disclosed Tuesday that

despite the door being unlocked,

there was no indication officers tried to open it during the standoff.

He said

police instead waited for more than an hour for a key.…

WHY DID THE DOORS LOCK FROM THE OUTSIDE?

Many schools designed in the 20th century featured classroom doors that locked from the outside, allowing the teacher or administrator to lock up as they left for the day, Todd Ferking explained in an email. Ferking is a design leader for DLR Group, an architecture firm that specializes in school design.

“Locking from inside the classroom may not have been a popular option out of concern that students could lock the teacher out,” he said.

The Columbine tragedy led to an evolution in school construction, he said, with most new classrooms designed to provide locking from inside via a key or thumb turn.

Today, it also is general practice that all exterior doors are locked during school hours, except during drop-off and pick-up, he said.

HAVE THERE BEEN PROBLEMS BEFORE?

At Sandy Hook Elementary School, the doors of the two classrooms

where all 20 children were killed in the 2012 massacre, along with their teachers,

could only be locked from the hallway

with a key.

Some victims’ families have said lives could have been saved if teachers had been able to lock classroom doors from the inside, and they questioned whether two teachers who were killed in the shooting, Victoria Soto and Lauren Rousseau, even had access to keys.

Another teacher who could not get a classroom door locked told investigators

that

she looked into the hallway, saw a janitor

who yelled at the gunman to leave

and motioned to the janitor to lock her door.

Sandy Hook Elementary was built around the same time as Robb Elementary, in 1956.

Mo Canady, the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers,

spoke publicly about the importance of being able to secure doors [from inside]

after Sandy Hook. He lamented that it was

still an issue a decade later.

“That school,” he said of Robb Elementary, “I can promise you, is not the only one in this country that

you can’t lock the doors from the inside.”

Such doors, he said, occasionally are spotted during assessments of buildings, particularly older ones. He described it as “unacceptable”

and urged schools to fix busted doors and retrofit doors that only lock from the outside while students are on summer break.

“The basics are so important,

and if your school district does not have doors that will allow the teachers to secure those in a lockdown, that’s a priority,” he said. “Those things really can and do save lives.”

WHAT STEPS ARE RECOMMENDED?

State and federal panels charged with reviewing individual mass shootings

have repeatedly advised schools to limit access by locking exterior doors,

as well as forcing visitors to enter through a secure door

and requiring teachers to lock classrooms while classes are in session.

Teachers and students drill for how to respond.

“Lock the door, turn off the light. Get the kids and staff into a hard corner, meaning not in the direct line of sight of the window where somebody can shoot through, and be quiet,” Trump said….

Uvalde in March had retained PBK, a design, architecture, engineering and planning firm that focuses on schools, to conduct a review of its buildings as it considered a potential bond issue,

said Ian Powell, who heads safety and security for the firm.

Powell said part of that review involved ensuring that the school’s safety protocols met the standards of the Texas Education Agency. The review also included everything from evaluating cooling systems to windows.

He said more schools are opting for so-called door lock indicators,

which make it easier for teachers to see whether their door is locked while inside their classrooms.

Texas doesn’t require such locks.

Powell said he doesn’t know any jurisdiction that does,

although the firm recommends them.

But before that review got underway in earnest, the shooting happened.

Since then, Powell said, the district has asked the firm to expand the scope of its security review. Other districts also have been calling seeking security reviews.

“We would all have wished that something would have been implemented and would have had the time to be implemented before they had the exposure to this type of a situation,” he said.”

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