More people die in school shootings where an armed officer is present than when there isn’t, according to a new study published Tuesday that adds a surprising element to the conversation about whether school resource officers make schools safer.
The study, led by Hamline University criminal justice professor Jillian Peterson and published in the JAMA Network, examined every K-12 school shooting case spanning 40 years — 20 years before the Columbine massacre and 20 years after.
The research looked at 133 shootings where one or more people were intentionally shot in a school building or where someone came to school armed with the intent of firing indiscriminately. The study found that there were three times as many people killed when there was an officer on the scene who was armed.
“One argument has consistently been that if there was a school shooting you want the school resource officer there, but what this study says is not necessarily,” Peterson said. “It was actually the number one predictor of the increase in casualties after the presence of an assault rifle.”
Author: Riham Feshir
Source: MPR News