MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - Wootton High School parents are raising concerns about where the school's assigned police officer was at the time of a shooting last week that left one student injured and the rest under lockdown for hours.
What they're saying:
One parent spoke to FOX 5 DC anonymously on Tuesday, raising questions about where the Wootton High School community engagement officer assigned to Wootton and three other schools in the cluster was at the time of the shooting.
"We have not received any answers or explanation as to where this person was and what they were doing," said the parent. "I don’t want to say it’s a cover-up, but if it smells like a cover-up and it looks like a cover-up, it’s a cover-up."
Dig deeper:
The night of the shooting, MCPS Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor said the CEO, a Rockville police officer, was at Lakewood Elementary School at the time of the gunfire. That school is about a mile from the Wootton campus, dealing with what was described as a traffic issue.
But the parent who spoke to FOX 5 DC says Lakewood administrators have told some families the officer was not there.
"I think the most important job that the school system has is to make sure that our kids are safe. That is the most basic job. And if they can’t do that, I really have lost a lot of trust in the school system. I completely understand that officers are also human beings. They need lunch breaks, they need bathroom breaks. That’s not why I’m upset. I’m upset because I feel like they have not told us officially what has happened. And I’m concerned about a lot of the conflicting information."
The other side:
Rockville police officials say they are responding to those concerns.
"I can unequivocally tell you that the officer was at that school, not only from his mouth, but I’ve spoken to him. He is beating himself up that he wasn’t at Wootton High School at the time," said Dep. Chief Barry Dufek of the Rockville Police Department.
Rockville police officials say the officer’s log proves he was at Lakewood Elementary School from 1:37 p.m. until getting word about the shooting at Wootton a little more than a half hour later.
"During the day there’s a bus loop and parents and other people that are coming in and out of the school are driving on that bus loop, so they’ve been asked — he was asked to come over there and try to mitigate some of that, and so that’s why he was over there at that time," said Dufek.
The backstory:
16-year-old Kahlil White‑Villatoro faces attempted second‑degree murder, two counts of first‑degree assault, two counts of second‑degree assault, and multiple firearms‑related charges after a shooting at Wootton High School last week.
Officials say White Villatoro shot one student, who was injured and taken to the hospital in stable condition, as well as threatening a separate female student earlier in the day on February 9.
Late Monday night, detectives located a Polymer80 9 mm handgun, confirmed to be a ghost gun, which are untraceable, self-assembled firearms. The gun was not found in the school when it was recovered by police.
Officials say White-Villatoro and the student who was shot yesterday are acquaintances. The student remains in stable condition, per officials.