Dolton high school security guard threatened to kill student, held gun to his chest
Dolton December 5 2018
Dolton high school security guard allegedly threatened to kill a student and put a gun to the student’s chest in the school parking lot last week, police said.
The incident allegedly happened Nov. 28 at the Academy for Learning, a public school operated by Exceptional Children Have Opportunities, or ECHO, a south suburban special education cooperative, officials said.
The guard, who had just been asked to leave the premises after slamming and threatening the student, pulled a black firearm from his waistband and “put the muzzle of the firearm in (the student’s) chest and continued to taunt him,” a Dolton police report states.
The guard, an employee of a private security firm, fled in a car before responding officers arrived at the scene, according to the report.
He is not being identified because he has not been charged with a crime.
Neither the private security firm nor ECHO district officials immediately responded to requests for comment about the incident, which reportedly happened after school security guards intervened in a heated argument between three students shortly after they arrived at school that morning.
When one of the students failed to heed a security guard’s commands, the guard grabbed the student by his coat, slammed him into a wall and took him to the ground, according to a police report.
While on top of the student, the guard placed his hands around the student’s neck and began yelling that he was going to kill the student, the report stated.
Two other security guards had to separate their colleague from the student and the guard was asked to leave the property for the remainder of the day, the report stated.
“What was reported to us by faculty and the other security guard was that the one security guard was going a little overboard with the student, had him on the floor,” Dolton Police Chief Robert Collins said. “And they had to actually have him leave the school, go outside of the school, to get away from the situation.”
One of the other guards walked her aggravated colleague outside and was on her way to her vehicle to get him a cigarette when two of the students involved in the earlier confrontation exited the school through the main entrance, according to the report.
Upon seeing the students, the guard “rushed” in their direction and began yelling, “What was all that . . . you were talking?” the report stated.
He then came face-to-face with the student he’d engaged earlier, brandished a gun from the front, right side of his waistband and pushed the gun into the student’s chest while taunting him, according to the report.
One of the other security guards told police he witnessed the incident and said he’d previously told his colleague not to bring his personal firearm on school property.
Daily Southtown
