Interim Legislative Meeting Focuses On School Safety

The Joint Standing Committee on Education, part of the West Virginia Legislature, heard from two law enforcement leaders during a Monday interim meeting about the increased danger schools face from armed intruders.

The Joint Standing Committee on Education, part of the West Virginia Legislature, heard from two law enforcement leaders during a Monday interim meeting about the increased danger schools face from armed intruders.

Both presented lawmakers with the stark reality of protecting schools in the era of mass shootings.

Keith Vititoe, safety director for Kanawha County Schools, said that according to FBI statistics, from 2020 to 2021, there was a 52 percent increase in the frequency of armed intruder accounts.

“The recommendations that I have very simply is that when we have critical needs in schools that we find a way to fund the shortcomings at a school, no matter how large or small,” Vititoe said. “Also, that we actually change the legislation to make it easier for local Boards of Education to actually hire the security personnel.“

Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger argued that having armed officers in schools is no longer enough.

“Make no mistake about it. It’s not if, it’s when it will happen,” he said. “If we had the funding and the initiative, we would put an officer in every school. However, that would only be the tip of the iceberg, per se.”

Mellinger asked legislators to consider expanding his “Shield Program,” which puts tactically trained officers in schools on a rotating basis, in the upcoming session.

Man Charged with Wheeling Federal Building Threat

A Wheeling man is charged with threatening to shoot up a federal building that was previously targeted by a gunman who was killed by police. 43-year-old…

A Wheeling man is charged with threatening to shoot up a federal building that was previously targeted by a gunman who was killed by police.
 
43-year-old Charles Edwin Coffman is charged with threatening to commit a terrorist act. The felony charge is punishable by up to three years in prison.
 
Wheeling police say a woman who was with Coffman on Wednesday told them that he said: “If everything keeps going like this, I am going to do what the cop did to the federal building, and I can get the guns.”
 
Coffman was apparently referencing an October incident in which former police officer Thomas Piccard fired 26 shots into at the federal courthouse before being shot and killed by authorities.
 

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