Security guard left loaded gun unattended at a Beaufort County elementary school
Beaufort SC Feb 6, 2022
A security guard at Mossy Oaks Elementary School left a loaded gun in a bathroom Tuesday, but apparently, no student came in contact with it.
The 9 mm gun was left in a staff bathroom at the school for approximately three minutes, according to Candace Bruder, a spokesperson for the school district.
The bathroom does not have a passcode or lock on it, Bruder said, meaning that anyone could go inside.
A teacher discovered the weapon in the bathroom and reported it to the principal.
In a statement to parents, Mossy Oaks Elementary School Principal Melissa Vogt said the gun was left in a staff bathroom and that the private security company has taken the “appropriate action.”
The security guard, who was not identified, began working at the school on Nov. 4, 2021. The guard will not be allowed back on school property, Bruder said.
In a directive from the GuardOne Security company that employs guards for Beaufort County School District, the company said “each security officer willingly assumes the responsibility of carrying a firearm in the performance of their duties” and must comply with safety guidelines. David Grissom, the district’s head of security, said that two supervisors from GuardOne Security are speaking to security staff at schools and that one of them is patrolling Mossy Oaks Elementary until a replacement guard has been hired.
The school board approved a nearly $1 million contract in September with S&S Management Group LLC, doing business as GuardOne Security, for 18 security guards, a supervisor and a “roamer” who fills in for other guards at the district’s elementary schools. Each of the guards are assigned to their own school (and early childhood centers that share those campuses).
The contract was originally pitched by school board member Rachel Wisnefski in 2019 to bring elementary security on par with that of the district’s middle and high schools, which are each assigned a police officer from Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office or a town police department. Previously, the elementary schools shared five community resource officers who also police the county’s private schools.
In total, the five officers patrol more than 30 schools, which has led to infrequent campus visits in past years. The exceptions to that rule are Red Cedar and Port Royal Elementary School, which each got their own school resource officers during the 2019-20 school year. Grissom said in October the elementary security guards would be armed with guns. Each guard would have to undergo training and submit to a national background check through GuardOne, he said.
GuardOne developed its own training curriculum for the guards, which had to be approved by the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division and reviewed by Grissom. Guards from the company receive 32 hours of training, although SLED only requires eight, Bruder said.
Guards would also have to take active shooter training at the school district and log hours at the gun range if they weren’t already certified to carry a gun. “They’ll be thoroughly vetted before they’re allowed in our schools,” Grissom said at the time.
At least six weapons have been reported in Beaufort County schools this school year, including three firearms and a knife found in a Beaufort Elementary School bathroom in December. This incident comes two months after seven Beaufort County schools received shooting threats, some made online and some left as graffiti in bathrooms.
Last month, two more shooting threats were reported: one in the form of a note at Robert Smalls International Academy that a student admitted to writing, and the other at Battery Creek High School accompanied by drawings of swastikas and racist messages. None of the shooting threats were carried out.
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