By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-26 22:07:15 | Updated at 2025-01-30 06:56:03
3 days ago
The Nashville high school where a teen gunman killed a fellow student last week had no metal detectors — apparently because administrators think they could be racist.
A former board member told The Post that the misguided administrators are responsible for keeping them out even over many parents’ objections.
“I knew this day was gonna happen,” said Fran Bush, formerly a Metro Nashville Public Schools board member.
“I knew it was gonna happen just because it’s like a free open door, everybody coming in,” she said of the Tennessee district’s schools, including Antioch High, where 17-year-old shooter Solomon Henderson murdered a 16-year-old classmate Wednesday.
Bush, who served on the MNPS board from 2018 to 2022, said she pushed for metal detectors throughout her tenure but that district Director Adrienne Battle “didn’t want to hear it” — even as parents backed calls for metal detectors to keep their kids safe.
After Henderson killed fellow teen Josselin Corea Escalante and then fatally shot himself, Battle told reporters that the district didn’t have metal detectors because research has shown they can have “unintended consequences.”
Exactly what consequences Battle was referring to remain unclear, but MNPS shared two studies with The Post that suggest metal detectors instill a sense of fear among students and make them feel unsafe. The studies also questioned metal detectors’ effectiveness for keeping weapons out of places.
One of the studies shared by MNPS said metal detectors disproportionately target students of color, too — a detail that other studies over the years have focused on, with findings suggesting that instills a sense of fear for minority students.
But Bush characterized such “unintended consequences” as mere excuses — calling them “a bunch of bull.
“There’s no study [that] shows metal detectors don’t work,” she said. “If that was the case, then we won’t have them in our airports, sports games, we wouldn’t have them in all these places that require security,” Bush said.
What’s more, Bush said, the students themselves told her they wanted metal detectors when she was doing her own research on the proposal.
“I went to the high school, I went to the middle school, and I also went to the elementary school,” she said. “These children will tell you they don’t have a fear of metal detectors. They don’t have fear of something is gonna help protect them. That’s what they want. They want to be protected.”
Several districts in Tennessee currently have metal detectors in their schools, and MNPS previously installed AI-powered gun-detection cameras to alert authorities if somebody draws a weapon inside its schools.
Such an AI system was active at Antioch High, but it failed to detect Henderson’s gun when he drew it in the school cafeteria.
But Bush says “common sense” measures as simple as metal detectors at the front doors would “absolutely” have stopped Henderson — who carried a pistol without problem onto school grounds — and that MNPS had “every opportunity” to install them.
During COVID, MNPS was granted millions of dollars in relief funds, which Bush said included allowances for installing new security measures such as metal detectors.
But the administration was never interested, Bush claimed.
“Why you choose not to move forward on something it’s gonna save the lives of children?” Bush said.
That resistance comes amidst a surge in alarming incidents across Tennessee public schools.
Incidents of students being caught with guns have spiked up to more than 50% in recent years, with 127 being found with handguns during the 2021-2022 school year and 13 having a rifle or shotgun, according to the Tennessee Department of Education.
That’s up from 75 incidents across the 2018-2019 school year.
Battle did not respond to requests for comment, but the school district highlighted several security measures that have been in place on its campuses, including police and security personnel, shatter-resistant glass windows, random searches using metal-detecting wands and K-9s, emergency alert buttons for teachers and “strong communication” between students, staff and parents.
“When weapons have been discovered in schools before, it has often been the result of people telling a trusted adult about their knowledge or suspicions,” a school district rep told The Post.
“Bringing a firearm to school is a zero-tolerance offense subject to mandatory expulsion in addition to criminal penalties.
“We are exploring all options to strengthen security at Antioch High School, as well as other schools in the district.”
