Harford County Sheriff gives update on incident at school outside Baltimore

d TJ I tried to go 2:00 for right prob they're I can hear you now started yet need [Music] hey guys just an update we're just waiting for Sheriff Gaylor and Dr Bolson from har County Public Schools to arrive uh there'll be a quick briefing with them before we uh do the actual briefing with you guys so just bear with us okay please and thank you you have aell on super uh I don't write off of hand I can get it for you though let me work on that for you yes par the off right AC street right yeah you on live feed yep give me just a second I I'm going to wait for the uh siren [Music] everybody ready all right good afternoon everyone uh sadly we stand here today uh to discuss another school shooting uh I'm very thankful uh this came out at 12:36 today our Department of Emergency Services Dispatch Center uh took calls for what was possibly an active shooter incident thankfully um that was not the case but we did have a shooting that took place in the school one suspect one victim uh at 12:36 again was the initial call there was the SRO assigned to the school who was in the school who did not hear the shot uh as the assistant the the principal I apologize the principal of the school also was in the school at the time did not hear the shot but heard the commotion that resulted from it uh both the principal and our SRO responded to the scene uh nurses the shooting took place in a first floor men's uh bathroom uh the uh initial uh after the initial shooting uh the suspect left the bathroom left the school uh other uh individuals in the school brought the victim out into the hallway where he was immediately attended to by uh nurses uh as part of the Public School System uh within uh the first two minutes we had our first response Deputy on the scene uh within 15 minutes more than 100 police officers were here from all of our uh local partner agencies Belair abine hary Grace the Maryland State Police uh as well as uh Transportation Authority and I know I'm going to miss somebody um uh Baltimore County Police sent units up into the county uh uh ATF is here I receed calls from other jurisdictions offering their support uh the Medics from Department of Emergency Services were here in a matter of uh minutes as well uh immediately attended to the patient who was airlifted to a Trauma Center uh again he is the the the victim in this shooting is a 15-year-old male who uh is in serious condition last we heard uh the suspect in the case uh thanks to our community members the suspect in our case was apprehended with within minutes uh he is a 16-year-old student at the school this was his first day although were the four days into the school year this was his first day in the school uh and this altercation apparently took place in the bathroom that resulted in a single shot what we believe to be a single shot being fired uh which struck the victim uh he he went a short distance away to some houses they called the also called the police called dispatch that was information was given to responding death depes who were able to encounter him very quickly and make an arrest um with with our criminal friendly legislature here in Maryland this is a 16-year-old suspect that we are now not allowed to talk to so as far as trying to give some information our detectives to get information about the questions I have that our all of our partners behind me have as to why we're not allowed to ask the suspect in this case uh we do have uh we've talked to the state's attorney we do have sufficient information uh that he will be charged in association with this shooting without the need to be interviewed um overwhelming evidence if you will um but again that investigation is ongoing I'm very uh thankful again for the quick response of of our deputies of all of our officers and the Troopers in the county all our Allied Partners all the officer assistance the Department of Emergency Services the great work at Dispatch Center I know Rick SS is with us the director of Dees County EX Executives with us I can't introduce everybody um but a again a tragic day four days into the school year we're all familiar with the harble uh shooting that took four lives in Georgia just a couple days ago and here we stand in Harford County with a school shooting uh that's about as much investigative information as I'm going to release at this point it's early on we have uh so many uh of our partners working with us U I'm joined Dr Bolson you can't uh undersell his uh staff and what they did again the the principal and the nurse uh attending to this victim right away hopefully giving him a good chance to survive this event I pray um Dr Bolson did you want to say anything thank thank you Sheriff um so I would like to start by thanking all of these First Responders I pulled up to the school to see just a sea of lights and people doing their jobs on behalf of our students in this community so thank you so much for that also to know that you know our hearts are breaking for the victim and this victim's family the circumstances are absolutely terrible and uh this this should not be happening in schools um I also want to thank our parents for their patience you know when an incident happens our our job first is to cure the students and and make sure that when we do release them back to their families that we're doing it as carefully and we're keeping as much track of everybody as we possibly can so for anyone who still isn't aware you know the the reunification site is that good shepherd Presbyterian Church just up the road here that process is working we've had families going through and being reunified with uh their children at this time again thank you to this entire Community all the First Responders thank you so much uh I want to say on behalf of my staff thank you to them um they they did the job unfortunately we prepare for things like this um but it's it's never the same as when it actually happens and so you know we're we're you know just devastated to be a part of this awful group of schools that have experienced things like this um and we're going to do everything we can working with this community to make sure this absolutely never happens again and with that and yes uh the re as as uh Dr boson said the reunification effort between the parents is going on I'm going to um take some questions for anyone here uh but we're going to be limited on what we are willing to offer I understand that sheriff thank you you recover a weapon what type of weapon how do you get it in the school and you know why this happened uh at this point in time the firearm has not been recovered um but other than that um yes we have an idea of what kind of weapon but I'm not going to go into any other investigative details at this time you know what the argument was about or we have no idea and again you know I I hope my frustration is clear that this legislature has handcuffed police um there are families of every other student in that school and and the parents of the shooter who have a right to know why we all stand here today and why there's a person who has been shot in one of our schools and we are not allowed to ask the person who committed that act because of this crazy legislature we have in this state can you for me can you tell us how we got the gun in schools in a backpack a pocket we we we do not know at this point in time and hopefully um the easiest way to find that out would be to ask the suspect but we don't get to go that way so hopefully the investigation uh as we again continue to work the investigative side of this uh we have a ton of investigators on scene I would probably unself I tried to give you a number uh but our investigators will work this case deal with ently with our partners and hopefully come up with those answers have DET does not does not were there any prior warnings or inklings of a dispute that was brewing before this there was an incident involving some japat toown high school students yesterday I have not heard that that event is related to this event in any way but I don't want to appear to be lying you know giving you false information that we later find out those two incidents were tied together the answer right now is not that we're familiar with so Sheriff you talked about the the law especially when it comes to juveniles and he said this was his first day in school school started days ago with those laws are you able to determine why he showed up to school today how frustrated are you with that uh I don't know if that's a normal thing obviously the normal thing is to show up on the first day of school but I think I'd have to defer to Dr bolon whether that's like out of the norm for some of our students and some of our schools I mean we have first week of school we have students who show up I mean most of our students show up in the first day as they should but in some cases that doesn't always happen so we do see students coming to us and rolling with us maybe coming from other places not clear when we were starting but we'd have to look into the specifics of this case uh Sheriff this is for you back to the laws you said the gun hasn't been found yet correct I guess that's part of the investigation that your deputies can't do right is that frustrating for this investigation oh absolutely and and you know um we know we don't have it so unless it was dropped in the school or somewhere between the point he was picked up or was it given to another you know we we have no idea and again the easiest way to get that answer is we have a person who we're going to be charging as an adult for committing a heinous crime in a school and we're not allowed to talk to them that is lunacy superintendent uh as far as Monday rolls around is school expected to resume what are the plans is there counseling for students who went through all this there will definitely be counseling uh in terms of opening and and that and sort of re-entering the school we haven't sorted that out yet we want to make sure our our students are able to get back with their amilies once we have that taken care of we'll start working on the next steps for getting school open and and returning to business as usual said you were schools prepared for something like this can you tell us the extent of that preparation and how much of it played a role in this inst of course um within well we prepare for all emergency incidents whether I mean things we've seen going on around the country or other types of emergencies and so you know our schools our staff is all trained trained and an active shooter um in this case you know this incident I think occurred around the time of right after a class change so there's usually a lot of students moving around but even in terms of you know what's our response the the reunification is one of the hardest parts of any significant uh issue like this whenever you have a crisis in a school and so knowing that we had the teams ready to roll to JP town to set up the reunification that we had all the you know the list of students in the schools and things like that so the unification is a big part um so I don't know if there's more to that that I didn't answer for you and I'll just say from the law enforcement side you know we we train routinely with our Allied Partners in the county and um sadly this isn't our first hor horrible event that we've had in the county but again uh to have the ability to have two police not only an SRO in the school um but two two the initial responding deputy there within two minutes and over 100 police officers because of the great policing that is here in our County and our surrounding jurisdictions which responded with our state and federal Partners um to have over 100 police officers on the scene very thankful that this was not an active shooter incident but it showed our response as if it was one is ready and I I pray we never have to test that system Sheriff do you know how many times this victim was shot and where and uh how many have you recovered any you know ballistics how many times his gun was fired I do know that we do believe just one round was fired which struck the sus from the suspect that struck the victim I I do not know as far as what has been recovered can you go into more detail about the community's assistance and capturing there were there were calls uh to the again back to 911 Center which is uh the county answering point for 911 calls so there were calls into the center uh indicating that this person was over near the school in a community banging on doors uh and that response over there is what led to his uh being quickly brought into custody Sheriff given what happened in Georgia just a few days ago what's your message to the men and women that showed up that got this under control oh I I couldn't be more proud and and I get to say that routinely that you know about the men and women of not just the sheriff's office but of our partners we are blessed here in Harford County we are blessed in our surrounding jurisdictions to have uh police officers who are are well trained who are ready to go in and attack a threat we we saw in Parkland sadly years ago um what it cost not to respond indirectly and I listened to the radio traffic uh as many people here behind as this event was unfolding and just the professionalism of how they set up incident command unified command with our Public Safety Partners at Dees fire and EMS um it just you know the system worked and it worked in this instance uh it is again the sad part is that we're discussing a school shooting at all sir I know it was the juvenile you haven't had a chance to talk but since you know who he is does he have a juvenile record that you can speak to I I I don't know I know that he's not unknown to us um but I don't know whether that means he has a juvenile record or just we've had calls for service that have involved him in the past I do know that anybody anything else what's your message to parents moving forward whether you or the superintendent you know there's a lot of it was a lot of tense moments a lot of trauma today uh just what's your message to those people in that school Community well I from from the Sheriff's Office standpoint you I'd like the message to be that you know we're we're going to do our very best to keep uh to keep our students safe in schools it's a shame um that we have supported some legislation in the past that hasn't uh from my this is from my personal opinion that hasn't uh worked to make our schools safe hasn't been passed that would have in my opinion worked to make the school safer but um you know we're ready to respond in times of need uh but we we need parents to to know what these young people are doing and we have we all have the question why is a 16-year-old just in the case the the person in Georgia was 14 or 15 um and his dad just was charged for allowing him access or having that weapon um what is the deal with this that's something the investigators be looking at how did he get his hands on this gun um but that that is where the problem lies and we're going to continue to do our very best to keep our community safe by following those leads out to the end uh but we need you know parents to actually be parents in many situations and and know what their children are up to said service elaborate home um it did not involve the school as far as I know but I just know just a very little bit about it so I don't feel comfortable just that he was not unknown to us Dr from my perspective I know there's going to be many questions from our community people will want to process this and and they'll be looking to you know help us find even better solutions for safety so we will by next week be putting out you know a schedule of times when people can engage with us how they might be able to engage with us to to work through uh processing what happen and uh and and I would ask people just keep an eye on the messaging that we're sending out we send a lot of information out for parents but also for the entire community and we'd ask that you know the people engage with us in that there'll be we'll definitely will be sure to reach out and and uh process this with them because I know there will be a lot of questions and with that we're going to wrap it up uh I I do want to again thank all of our First Responders uh who did such a great job today um didn't hesitate when response was needed and also Community I know that when you're responding and you hear that there was a shooting in your daughter your son or daughter's school and you're responding and you're trying to be reunified there were a couple times where tensions got high and and people got impatient and uh I think through the school system with Dees and ourselves we did our best to facilitate that and appreciate the community support and cooperation as this process is ongoing thank you very much thank you just hanging by a 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