After the second shooting in two days at a North Texas high school that took place beyond the reach of safety features that schools across the country have implemented to protect students from gunfire, Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde acknowledged campuses still have “vulnerabilities” that need to be examined.
Elizalde’s comments came during a news conference in the library of Thomas Jefferson High School on Wednesday, one day after a student was wounded in the school’s parking lot. On Monday, a student was killed and another was wounded outside Arlington ISD’s Lamar High School.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t say, clearly we’re going to have to now look into how we become even more secure with our parking facilities,” Elizalde said. She also re-emphasized her previous calls for state legislators to provide more money to address school safety needs. She called for an allotment of $200 a student, opposed to the $10 a student currently allocated.
Two people were in a car from which shots were fired outside Thomas Jefferson High late Tuesday afternoon, wounding a student in the arm, Elizalde said.
Elizalde said two of the three people involved in the shooting were DISD students — one of them being the victim. But she declined to directly say whether the district knows the identities of both people in the car, which drove off after the shooting. No arrests have been made.
“The information I have right now is that we do have a suspect,” Elizalde said, declining to discuss specifics because of the ongoing investigation.
The shooting happened after classes had been dismissed for the day, and about 300 of the school’s 1,400 students were on campus at the time. Elizalde, along with Thomas Jefferson High School principal Benjamin Jones, credited the actions of three staff members who ran toward the sound of gunfire.
An athletics trainer at the school provided immediate first aid to the injured student, Jones said. The school’s band director called 911 within 30 seconds of the shooting, while an assistant athletics coordinator alerted Jones.
School officials also acknowledged the students who remained on campus for their quick reaction and attention to directions from staff members.
Students in the parking lot who witnessed the gunfire have been “forthcoming,” Elizalde said.
The shooting was captured on video from the Walnut Hill International Leadership Academy, which shares a campus with the high school. It happened in a parking lot between the schools, both of which were closed Wednesday.
“We can’t contribute to the normalizing of guns in our communities, and if we held school today as usual, I feel that we would be contributing to that normalization,” Elizalde said. “We all have to come together to recognize that these events manifest themselves in many of our community locations of gathering. Whether it’s a synagogue, a church, a movie theater or a school parking lot, this is a reflection of where we are today.”
The Dallas ISD Police Department is leading the investigation. Elizalde said the shooting was an “isolated situation” and that there was no ongoing danger to students returning to school on Thursday.
