Superintendent speaks after teen fires at officers, takes his own life inside of school
RICHMOND, Ind. (WISH) — A day after a teenager fired at officers before taking his own life inside of a school, the district’s superintendent spoke to the media.
Richmond Community School Superintendent Todd Terrill discussed the events that took place Thursday at David W. Dennis Intermediate School.
Police say a 14-year-old boy entered the school with a gun, got into a shootout with responding officers, then took his own life.
Police say the boy’s own mother called dispatchers to warn them, allowing officers to respond quickly and keep the situation from being worse. Terrill also praised his staff’s efforts.
“In any school safety plan the most impactful piece of that is the human element,” he said. “You can have all kinds of different things in place. If you don’t have that human element where people are willing to step up and make the call at that point in time, feel empowered to make that call, feel prepared to make that call, it’s going to be even more of a challenge and a struggle as you go through that. Our teachers will tell you that they felt very prepared, our kids will tell you that they felt very prepared.”
Terrill said teachers most recently reviewed emergency protocol in the last few weeks. He also praised their school resource officers.
“The drills that they do, him knowing that building in such a way, the other resource officers having that familiarity with that building, moreso than the responding police, which was unbelievable the amount of officers who were there within minutes,” said Terrill. “It was crucial because then as they grouped up with different groups, they were able to have that inside understanding and knowledge of our building to move efficiently and effectively.”
Terrill did not speak about the investigation of the shooting. He would not confirm if the boy had ever been a student at the school, but said he was not a student at the time of the incident.
Terrill spoke highly of the parents in the community.
“They have done a great job, their patience has been above expectations,” he said. “Being a parent myself, I can’t imagine the things that they were going through yesterday.”
