Opinion, Micah Morrison
Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to find a way to protect our school children – just someone who has been on the ground and knows how things work. Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, has been in touch with one such man and has filed this Investigative Bulletin report:
It’s September and New York City’s 1.1 million school kids are back to class and Randy Jurgensen is back to worrying about them getting killed.
A Korean War veteran and former New York City homicide detective, Jurgensen has seen a lot of shooting deaths. He investigated over 200 murders during his twenty years as a detective, including the killings of children, police officers and civilians. After that, he was a consultant to national and international police organizations. Jurgensen is a famous figure in law-enforcement. Investigative Bulletin has written about his pursuit of justice in the murder of NYPD Patrolman Phillip Cardillo—the so-called “Harlem Mosque Incident.”
A grandfather many times over, Jurgensen is obsessed with school shootings. He says that experience has taught him that “two things matter most in preventing shootings: training and information.”
He’s had a plan to make schools safer. In the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School cataclysm, he wrote Vice President Joe Biden with the plan. Biden had been appointed by the president to lead a gun-violence task force. Jurgensen pointed out that across the country, dozens of law-enforcement personnel retire every day. These highly trained professionals have been vetted their entire careers, retire with pensions and health insurance, and are licensed to carry firearms. He recommended that retired law-enforcement professionals be hired to help protect school kids.
“I received a polite, non-committal reply from the vice president,” Jurgensen said. “I wrote other leading political figures. I received the same reply: thanks, we’ll get back to you. No one ever did.”
Meanwhile, after Sandy Hook, the school killings continued: three dead in Kentucky; six killed in Santa Monica; two dead in Colorado; five dead in Washington state.
Killings in 2015 in Roseburg, Oregon; in Savannah, Sacramento and Flagstaff, in Houston, Nashville, Winston-Salem, and Las Vegas. Killings in 2016 in Wisconsin, California, Massachusetts, Texas, South Carolina. Killings in 2017 in California, Texas, New Mexico, Kentucky. In 2018, the murder of ten at Santa Fe High School in Texas and seventeen at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida.
On the national policy front, nothing changed.
“Policymakers are bogged down,” Jurgensen says. “They’re still searching for ways to protect children at school. I warned years ago that half-steps and state efforts would get tied up in court cases and you see that happening now. Meanwhile, children are left to fend for themselves in active-shooter situations with ineffective instructions such as ‘hide in the closet,’ ‘stay away from the windows,’ and ‘go to a safe area.’ The latest idea is to arm teachers, but most experts dismiss that as unrealistic. Ditto gun control. But by putting retired law-enforcement professionals in place to protect—not police—the schools, shootings can be prevented.”
Jurgensen thinks New York City is the ideal location to launch a national movement to protect our schools with retired law-enforcement personnel. According to the New York City Police Pension Fund, there are more than 43,000 retired cops with a connection to the Big Apple. There are 1,700 public schools in New York. A two-person team for each school would require about 3,400 cops. Their function would be two-fold:
- One, serve as a first line of defense in case of an active-shooter situation. Documents obtained by Judicial Watch in the aftermath of the Broward County shooting show that an immediate armed response is essential.
- Two, gather information from within the school itself.
“Most school shootings are done by students and other students know the shooters,” Jurgensen says. “Over time, police officers serving in schools can earn the trust of students. Information conveyed on a confidential basis from concerned students could prevent shootings.”
The cost of putting retired cops in city schools would be significant, but not a budget buster. New York City has an annual school budget of $24 billion. Albany could chip in. And the federal government could provide funding for a pioneering school safety program with a bipartisan stamp.
“We all can agree that protecting children should be our highest priority,” Jurgensen says. “We can develop a program to actually prevent school shootings, not just react to them. The police community is a critical component in any program. Just look at your TV during a school shooting and see who is running toward the danger.”
As with everything else, this issue is being kicked around – to death – on the political soccer field.
About Judicial Watch
Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Follow him on Twitter @micah_morrison. Tips: [email protected]
Investigative Bulletin is published by Judicial Watch. Reprints and media inquiries: [email protected]
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach.
For more information, visit: www.JudicialWatch.org.
I know that most people think of police and EMS as first responders. Some people think that a resource officer should be the first responders for a school. This is an answer, but the resource officer can only be the first responder if physically present at the site of a school shooting within seconds. Most times your first responder is still going to be a teacher or an administrator. Most people don’t think about first responders at any kind if incident. Who is the first responder to an accident? Is it the police who are minutes away? Is it the… Read more »
I currently teach in a high school of over 1200 students. We are connected to a junior high school of over 1600 students. There are (2) SROs to ‘protect’ all of these students, plus the 200+ faculty and staff. As for me, I’m also a former LEO trained in ASR. Most of the teachers on my wing are prior service mitary veterans. Arm US.
@jh45gun Hovater, Thank you for your past and current service … and … GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!
Get out? I can do more IN than out. I’m in a profession in which I actually look forward to getting to work.
Pima County Oath Keepers Plan For School Safety “Keeping Our Kids Safe: A Call to Action” 1. Oath Keepers believes the current public policy to keep our children safe has failed as evidenced by the increasing number of school murders. For example, Gun Free Zones have made our children a target for those that would do them harm. 2. Oath Keepers believes the only way to protect our children is to apply what works; those programs, procedures, and practices which have kept our courthouses, federal buildings, airports and airplanes secure and safe. 3. Oath Keepers believes it’s simply a matter… Read more »
Most of the retires have left this state BECAUSE they would not put up with the crap those experts were trying to push on the members of JOHN Q”” public
Most teachers are well educated, thoughtful planners who do a great job in the classroom. Although we had two armed officers on campus when I was teaching, there was no way these officers could have stopped a shooter who came onto a campus of 3500 students and 200 teachers. Any effort on their part would still have been too late for many students. A trained and armed teacher is the only logical responce to a shooter who suddenly shows up in a classroom. Everone else, including campus police will be too late. Many who now give advise have never spent… Read more »
This is a program that might have some merit if it was truly looked into, but as stated by our great politicians we’ll get back to you!!!!! This has been the politicians view since Columbine in 1999, and the only thing that they have pushed is Gun Free Zones! They formed the T S A in 30 days after 9/11 which we don’t like but it is doing what it was designed to do, keep us safe! Why can’t we get our Scum-Bag Politicians to do something about that in our schools, WHAT IS THE PRICE OF A CHILDS LIFE???????… Read more »
“According to the New York City Police Pension Fund, there are more than 43,000 retired cops with a connection to the Big Apple.”
The problem with that is most of them probably now live in FL, AZ, TX, NC, PA, etc. I’d be interested to know how much of NY state and municipal pension money stays instate.