Officials learn how to prevent school shootings – News 13 Orlando

ORLANDO, Fla. — Learning how to protect students and staff from gun violence has been a hot topic in Orlando recently.

About 50 law enforcement and school administrators from Florida met for the National Student Safety and Security conference this week.

Organizers said the goal was to prepare professionals for the next school shooting using de-escalation techniques, and to learn from those that have directly dealt with a school tragedy.

Officials say the conference was created after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007.

Darlene Cooper, who normally carries a gun and badge as she strolls through her school in Louisiana, said it is important to make connections with students.

“I walk the halls, making contact with the students,” she said.

Just two weeks ago, her school was threatened by a student who left a note to his mother saying that he was going to do harm to others.

“Our high school in our parish, and he was coming to shoot up the school because he was bullied,” Cooper said while describing the incident.

She said that as a school resource officer, she has learned a lot about students.

“I feel as if our youth these days, they are lost,” she said.

Trent Lovett knows about the subject of school shootings first-hand. 

He was school superintendent in Marshall County, Ky. when a shooter came into the school. 

Lovett was at the conference sharing his story with some 150 school administrators and law enforcement officials.

“(In) 2018 we joined a club that nobody wants to be a part of,” he said. “We had a school shooter — a 15-year-old sophomore, shot and injured up to 24 people.”

Two of the people injured during the shooting ultimately died, he said.

Lovett said he speaks at conferences like the one in Orlando in the hope that others will learn from his district’s tragedy.

“Hopefully help someone else, maybe a school district to either prevent or mitigate a situation if it ever does happen is my goal,” he said.