Does every school need a metal detector?

Bill Dedman Investigative reporter • Profile • E-mail

Metal detectors, threat-evaluation software, police officers -- hundreds of American schools have added tighter security since 1999’s attack at Colorado’s Columbine High School.

But these solutions "are not likely to be effective," and are potentially harmful, according to federal researchers who conducted the most thorough study of school shootings across the nation.

Of what value is a metal detector, the researchers asked, when an attacker is willing to kill others and take his or her life?

Or threat-evaluation software, when most attackers do not make a threat before an attack?

Or a SWAT team, when most attacks last only a few minutes and end before police arrive?

Instead of relying solely on physical security, the researchers suggest, schools should be paying more attention to listening to students, discouraging and discovering attacks while they’re still in the planning stages.

After the nation’s third deadly school attack in a week, one of the researchers said Monday that he was ambivalent about encouraging every one of the 100,000 schools in the nation to add metal detectors.

“Because you’ve had three school shootings in this country, is that a reason to make sure that every school in the country has a metal detector?” said the researcher, William Modzeleski, director of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program for the U.S. Department of Education, which studied school shootings with researchers from the U.S. Secret Service. “Would it have stopped what happened?”

How else can schools prevent attacks?

The most detailed study of school shootings was done by the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education. The researchers studied 37 attacks, and interviewed 10 of the perpetrators, for their 2002 report.

Their advice? Schools should:

• Encourage students to report what they hear, and to have an adult they can confide in, because attackers often disclose their plans to other students, but rarely to adults.
• Watch for behavior such as gathering weapons or making plans, because attackers rarely “just snap” in a spur-of-the-moment attack.

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