Sunday 7 August 2022 10:16 PM North Carolina county sheriff says his office will install AR-15 rifles in ... trends now
A county sheriff in North Carolina has vowed to set up safes filled with AR-15 rifles and ammo at six local schools in response to the Uvalde school shooting .
Madison County Schools are beefing up on campus security for the upcoming 2022-2023 academic year by partnering with the Madison County Sheriff's Buddy Harwood to install heavy-duty weaponry that could be deployed in the event of a hostile intruder.
'We were able to put an AR-15 rifle and safe in all of our schools in the county,' Harwood further said. 'We've also got breaching tools to go into those safes. We've got extra magazines with ammo in those safes.'
Those breaching tools are designed to break through automatic-locking doors installed in schools which can only be opened from the inside, potentially trapping children and teachers in a room with an attacker.
Harwood says his office took the step after it was revealed that poor decision-making and a lack of training on situations involving an active shooter were reported as key failures in the Texas state house's report on investigations into the Uvalde massacre.
'Those officers were in that building for so long, and that suspect was able to infiltrate that building and injure and kill so many kids,' Sheriff Buddy Harwood told the Asheville Citizen-Times. 'I just want to make sure my deputies are prepared in the event that happens.'
Uvalde cops stood in a corridor for more than an hour in June while gunman Salvador Ramos, 18, murdered 19 children and two teachers before he was shot dead.
Madison County Schools Superintendent Will Hoffman said school district officials within the county have been constantly updated on the new safety measures and are also regularly meeting with local authorities, including Harwood, for training with instructors from Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
Maddison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood raised the importance of self-defense against active shooters and the failings within the response of local authorities in the Uvalde shooting as reasons for introducing the new safety measures on school campuses
Safes filled with AR-15s will now be introduced in schools in Madison County, North Carolina, as a local sheriff tries to avoid a repeat of the Uvalde massacre for the upcoming academic year
Hoffman has also allowed Madison County Sheriff officials to have access to school camera systems, which were only previously monitored by the county's Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Six schools making up for the Madison
