Authorities did a great job last week of peacefully apprehending a student who brought a loaded semi-automatic handgun inside Allen High School.
A quick-thinking Allentown police officer at the school teamed up with juvenile probation officials to nab the offender, who admitted to the charges and was declared delinquent in juvenile court Thursday.
Unfortunately, those actions were overshadowed by the lack of transparency about the situation. I fear that’s what people will remember most.
Allentown police and the Allentown School District offered only scant details about how the situation unfolded on Sept. 15, and in the days after. More details weren’t released until Wednesday, nearly a week later.
The new information was offered only after The Morning Call’s Jenny Roberts challenged the lack of information. She spoke with teachers and staff at Allen who said they had feared for their safety and hadn’t received sufficient information while the school was locked down.
The new details were not released by police or the school district. They came from Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin. He issued a statement to offer clarity, saying he was prompted to do so by The Morning Call’s reporting.
Martin confirmed for the first time that the student was arrested inside the school. A previous statement from Allentown police on the day of the incident said only that officers located a juvenile with a loaded gun, after investigating a report of a person with a weapon at West Park near the school.
The statement did not specify where the arrest occurred, and said no further details would be released.
Why?
The search was over. An arrest was made. Why not explain the circumstances? Sure, some details may be necessary to conceal until the case is adjudicated. But the location of the arrest should not be one of those hidden details.
The resulting confusion did not build trust within the community, which is something that police Chief Charles Roca routinely preaches. In this case, it makes it appear as if the police were trying to keep the school district from looking bad.
Now both look bad.
Days after the arrest, the district referred questions from The Morning Call to police. Roca said he could not provide information beyond the initial statement about the arrest because of “pending juvenile adjudication.”
Roca told me Friday the matter still was under investigation when the statement was issued on the day of the incident. He said at the time there was a lot of misinformation being spread about incidents at other schools, too, and the information released was intended to quell those rumors.
Providing more details of what happened would have helped.
Martin said the student, a 14-year-old, was arrested after a witness told police that boys were seen running toward Allen. One boy appeared to be have on his ankle an electronic bracelet with GPS that is used by authorities to monitor previous offenders.
A city police officer stationed at the school heard that radio broadcast. He immediately consulted with the county’s juvenile probation office about whether any Allen students under monitoring were in West Park that morning.
The office confirmed one juvenile was in the park at the time, and was currently in the school. The juvenile, whose name has not been released because of his age, promptly was arrested.
Martin said Thursday the student was sent to a juvenile detention center after being adjudicated delinquent on charges of possessing a firearm as a minor; carrying a firearm without a license; and having a weapon on school property.
School district Superintendent John Stanford addressed the issue at Thursday’s school board meeting.
He said he believes Allen and school district officials acted responsively and appropriately as the incident occurred, based on the information they had at the time. He said the district would continue to review security measures and procedures at all schools.
Regarding the release of information after the arrest, Stanford said it is best practice for school officials to let police take the lead.
“When law enforcement shares that an investigation is still pending, the school district should not make statements or take actions that would impede or interfere with that investigation,” he said.
The district was not told the investigation was complete until it received Martin’s statement six days later, Stanford said.
He said the district had received emails from teachers and students and “some feel that we were less than forthright.”
He said the district would partner with the city and city police to review the incident.
The review will focus on safety, city spokeswoman Genesis Ortega said Friday. The findings will be discussed at a news conference at Allen, she said, and will show that city police worked closed with district officials to protect students “and reduce the likelihood of a more serious incident.”
“We will also use this as an opportunity to review messaging to ensure parents and the community stays informed,” Ortega said.
Stanford echoed that during his comments at Thursday’s school board meeting.
“There are things we can always do better and we will continue to look at our processes, including how we communicate and what we can and cannot share during a crisis situation,” he said.
During a crisis, there may very well be a need to keep some information under wraps, so as not to endanger students and staff, or endanger the investigation.
But after an arrest is made, the public deserves to know some basic details, such as whether that arrest occurred inside a school and involved a student with a loaded gun.
Morning Call columnist Paul Muschick can be reached at 610-820-6582 or paul.muschick@mcall.com
