AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is no stranger to mass shootings. Five years ago, a gunman opened fire at a church in Sutherland Springs, killing 26 people. Two years later, a gunman killed 23 Texans at a Walmart in El Paso. And this past summer, another attacker killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
But only now is the Department of Public Safety asking for one billion dollars to build an active shooter training facility in Texas. This news, first reported by the Texas Tribune, comes after law enforcement waited more than an hour to enter the classrooms where a gunman fatally shot 21 people and injured several more.
At a Senate hearing this past summer, DPS Director Steve McCraw said there was not enough training done, because quote “terrible decisions were made by the on-scene commander.” But one expert isn’t sure building a billion-dollar facility is necessary to get officers trained.
“My understanding is in Uvalde, basically, they needed to go in and not wait in the hallway. So do you need a huge facility to train that? I honestly don’t know,” said Sandra Thompson, a law professor at the University of Houston.
McCraw did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Gov. Greg Abbott, who has promised to use half of the $27 billion budget surplus for the next biennium for property tax cuts.
Another expert said extra training for DPS officers wouldn’t make a big difference for school safety either, unless the proposed facility would be available for educators to use.
“I want the most trained person to be that classroom teacher. That’s the person who’s going to protect that roomful of kids,” said Curtis Lavarello, the executive director of the School Safety Advocacy Council.
Thompson noted that suicides and accidents at home make up a majority of gun deaths in the United States.
Because mass shootings are statistically rare, Dr. Amy Klinger with the Educator’s School Safety Network said school officials need to have a big-picture view of safety. Locking doors, screening visitors and preparing for medical emergencies are all important, too.
“If the only thing you’re training for is active shooter, you have ignored all these other things that are much more likely to happen, and your school is less safe,” Dr. Klinger said.
Greg Shaffer, a retired FBI agent and the founder of Shaffer Security Group, said the $1.2 billion McCraw is requesting for a new facility could still be used to make schools safer, but in a different way.
"Training's always necessary for police officers nationwide. Training for police in every jurisdiction is sorely lacking, so this is definitely a step in the right direction,” Shaffer said. “My biggest issue is, it's kind of a knee-jerk reaction to Uvalde shooting, which had nothing to do with a lack of tactics and had everything to do with a lack of leadership. So I'm not sure this is the right response right now. I wanted to see that money be spent elsewhere, mainly [to] get a school resource officer in every school in Texas."
McCraw’s request for money is raising the question, 'Why now?' Mass shootings are not new in Texas. Thompson said it’s because the Uvalde tragedy sparked so much outrage.
“I think this is the first one where there was such pointed criticism of the law enforcement response,” she said.
Thompson isn’t sure lawmakers will give DPS the money they say they need next session. But as long as Texas has lax gun laws, she said investing in more active-shooter training might be the right way to go.
“Once we go down this path of not wanting to have any meaningful regulation for guns, not even requiring a permit any longer, then we are in a position where we need to strengthen law enforcement to protect ourselves from the situation that we've created,” Thompson said.