CMS ‘complacent’ before fatal Butler High shooting, superintendent says

Before last week’s fatal shooting at Butler High School, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools recorded the highest number of guns found by any school district in the state.

But CMS Superintendent Clayton Wilcox said Monday that he was “surprised” that a student would bring a gun to school and shoot a classmate.

In a radio interview on WFAE’s “Charlotte Talks,” Wilcox said the district had worked to prevent a mass shooting like those in Parkland, Fla., or Newtown, Conn., where an outsider entered the building, but had not anticipated the kind of incident that unfolded at Butler High.

Jatwan Craig Cuffie, a 16-year-old high school freshman, has been charged in the death of Bobby McKeithen, who was also 16. Police say he shot and killed McKeithen around 7:15 a.m. Oct. 29 in a crowded school hallway before classes began.

Wilcox acknowledged the district intercepted a disproportionately high number of guns on school grounds in the 2016-2017, the latest year state statistics are available. But no other case — including four since school began in late August — resulted in shootings, and each time students reported seeing firearms, Wilcox said.

“What surprised me is a student would shoot another student in a school,” Wilcox said. “...We maybe had gotten a bit complacent in that kids would tell us.”

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham said it is inexcusable that CMS would be caught off guard given the spate of highly publicized school shootings across the nation.

Commissioners this year approved $9.2 million for CMS to improve school security with new measures such as fencing, digital video cameras and panic alarms.

“If you have one gun at a school, we have got a gun problem,” Cotham said. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before if people are bringing guns to school.”

Commissioner Jim Puckett said he understands that school shootings are unpredictable and that it is difficult to prepare for every scenario.

However, Puckett said, the number of guns found on campus since school began represented “a red flag.”

“There’s no surprise if there’s an increase in guns, someone would use it,” Puckett said.

In a written a statement to the Observer, CMS spokesman Tracy Russ did not directly address Wilcox’s comments. Russ said the district is reviewing the incident to determine how to reduce the number of guns in schools.

Staff, students and law enforcement are trained but “last week’s events represented a sad and tragic first-time event in our community,” Russ said.

More guns found

Wilcox promised CMS would step up training and preparation for possible violence after a former student shot and killed 17 students and faculty at a Florida high school on Feb. 14.

That same month a state report showed more guns were intercepted on CMS campuses in the 2016-17 school year than other district in North Carolina by a wide margin, according to Feb. 22 story by the Observer.

A gun is added to the tally if it’s found on school grounds.

CMS found 19 guns, a 10-year high, the Observer reported. With about 150,000 pupils, CMS accounts for about 10 percent of the state’s enrollment, but nearly 20 percent of the gun total for the state.

Wake County, North Carolina’s largest school district, found 13 guns in 2016-17.

State officials will release findings for the 2017-2018 school year in March, said a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

CMS said Monday that authorities discovered nine guns on campuses, but said that could differ from the state figures because the district uses different criteria to calculate the tally.

Asked in the radio interview why guns appeared to be a bigger problem in CMS than elsewhere, Wilcox said it reflects social ills in the broader community.

Wilcox referenced a Harvard and UC-Berkeley study that found poor children in Charlotte are less likely to escape poverty than their peers in America’s 50 largest cities. He also mentioned protests that followed the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in 2016.

‘No simple solution’

Wilcox told WFAE that staff and students had practiced a mass shooter drill at Butler a week before the shooting.

Now, he said the district is considering new safety measures, including security wands.

“Prevention is the best option to reduce numbers of guns in schools,” said Russ, the district spokesman. “The district believes that there is no simple solution, nor are the answers to be found isolated to the school campuses. The answers must come from the community at large, committed to comprehensive solutions.”