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Investigation into shooting at Wootton High School continues
The investigation into a shooting at Wootton High School that left one student injured in Rockville is ongoing. The 16-year-old suspect is being charged as an adult.
ROCKVILLE, Md. - Families in Montgomery County have continued to express concern after a student was shot at Wootton High School on Monday.
It’s prompted questions about school security and what can be done to prevent future incidents.
What we know:
The school resource officer program in Montgomery County has been changed. Now, one officer covers a number of schools.
The city of Rockville pays for SROs at Wootton and Magruder high schools, but the one assigned here was away from campus at the time of the shooting.
There is also a month-long pilot program starting next month at three MCPS high schools — Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Seneca Valley and Magruder — that will use AI technology, not actual metal detectors, at the school entrances to serve as weapons detection systems.
What they're saying:
"The detector is interesting. It is stunningly expensive, but it can detect shapes and so something like a ghost gun would fail, would show up on this detector, because it wouldn’t trigger the metal but the shape also can detect a knife, the shape of the knife, it’s like maybe $200,000 a shot," Montgomery County Council Executive Marc Elrich said. "The council and I are going to have these discussions."
"No safety solution is going to be perfect. No approach is going to solve every potential challenge. The question is whether or not you're doing enough things in enough different places to mitigate as much as you possibly can and that's the step back we need to take to think through whether or not we're doing everything within our power to keep our students safe, to make sure our schools are the safest place in our county. If there is ever a moment when any school isn't the safest place in our community, we have failed and we need to address that failure," councilmember Andrew Friedsen said.
"The fear is real, and as a parent, I cannot imagine having my kids coming home and telling me, 'Mommy, I don't wanna go back to school because I feel that somebody can kill me.' That's what's happening," Montgomery County Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez said. "And as a parent, I want answers because I want to feel comfortable taking my kid to school."
"We have 160,000 students in Montgomery County — a big, diverse district. And I think each community has very different needs and a one-size-fits-all policy is not necessarily what we need in Montgomery County. But I definitely think we need deeper engagement talking to parents, with the students and the educators within the different high school areas to see what they need to feel safe. That is the best way to keep a community safe," councilmember Evan Glass said.
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Team coverage: Parents, school leaders meet to discuss shooting at Wootton High School
There is now a second victim in yesterday's Wootton High School shooting. Police said on Tuesday that the suspect had the gun out inside the school some time before shooting a fellow student. Parents and school leaders are meeting to address the shocking incident. FOX 5’s Katie Barlow and Josh Rosenthal have more on the investigation.
Parents demand answers:
Parents and school officials met at Wootton the day after the shooting as many families were deeply concerned about the incident.
There were two meetings, and they both got somewhat emotional at times.
Some parents were satisfied with the response.
"Having to do with crises, you try to navigate it as best you can, knowing that you’re not going to get everybody’s questions answered, and so, I have a little bit of grace for them," Wootton parent Beth Steiner said.
While others were not.
"I think that was very embarrassing. We came here because we expected that they were gonna answer our questions, but unfortunately, they didn’t answer our questions," said Samuel Aze.
MCPS leadership said the meetings were not meant to be town halls. They were meant to address what children may experience emotionally after a traumatic event like this, and how adults can talk and listen to their kids.
But some parents said that just wasn't enough. They wanted to talk about safety and ask questions. Officials said those opportunities will come, just not right now.
Dig deeper:
FOX 5 spoke with Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor after one of these meetings.
He said some immediate security upgrades are coming to Wootton this week. That includes lock and camera upgrades.
There will also be an increase in security personnel for the foreseeable future — likely, he said, until the end of the year.
"This is terrible. This has been awful. It’s deeply unsettling. We are heartbroken that we’ve experienced this. Our goal, quite candidly, is to create a safe, welcoming, inclusive school environment, and when we have an event that runs directly counter to that, it provokes a response and a reaction. I’m right there with our parents. I’m angry, I’m upset," Taylor told FOX 5.
He also said that other security measures, like metal detectors, are under consideration and could be an option down the road.