Posted on 03/04/2018 6:13:50 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A high school student who survived the deadly Florida shooting on Valentine’s Day that left 17 people dead has slammed his teacher on social media, calling him an “opportunist” and “a coward,” after he allegedly wouldn’t unlock his classroom door and let students in, a report from the Sun-Sentinel said on Friday.
Josh Gallagher, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., shared his account on Twitter. He said he was in math class with his teacher Jim Gard when the fire alarm went off. Students began to evacuate, and while Gallagher was near the stairwell, he said they heard shots being fired.
Kids started to retreat back toward their classroom, Gallagher said, only to find a locked door.
Gallagher, along with more than a dozen other students, was “left in the hallways ducking as the screams of classmates and gunshots took over the noise around me,” he tweeted. “We were stuck in the hall for 4 total minutes ducking and in fear for our lives.”
While Gallagher was on the phone with his dad, who he said is a first responder, another teacher who he’d “never seen before” allowed the group of kids to come inside.
After the shooting, Gallagher said he learned that his teacher allegedly “ran back into the classroom without turning around and locked his door.”
“He left 75% of his students out in the hallway to be slaughtered,” the student claimed in the post.
Gallagher goes on accuse his teacher of being an “opportunist” and someone who shouldn’t be seen “as close to a hero.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yes, you won't hear much about from the leftwing anti-gun propagandists, but Peter Wang, a 15 year old JROTC member, gave his life holding open a door, under fire, so fellow students and even teachers could escape. Not everyone at Parkland was a coward.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There was no good option for this teacher.
Standard lockdown procedure is to lock the door and not to open it.
While we’re on the subject, let me mention something about JROTC programs. I taught for many years in a big city high school. There were daily fights in the hallway, lots of student cursing, etc.
But there was one exception to all that: the JROTC hallway. It was like being in another world, a civilized world. And if any non-JROTC students happened to enter there, the glare of the JROTC instructor (a retired Army sergeant) was enough to keep them in line.
That would be a good reason for the teacher to be taking an active role in the defense of the students and the room. Obviously clearing the hall of students before closing the door would be the first step. If necessary carefully looking through the window to ascertain what is happening in the hallway before opening the door would be an obvious second step.
Not opening the door unless you were certain it was safe to do so would be a third obvious step. But leaving students outside to die wouldn't be a first choice option either.
Being ready to ambush the shooter if he entered through an opened door would also be a key step.
For the most part the analysis is the same as whether you should keep a door closed if you were using it as a fire barrier. Certainly opening the door at the wrong time could kill everybody in the room, but just because that might happen in some circumstances isn't sufficient justification to never open a door to let someone escape a fire in the hallway.
Responsible teachers should know enough, and be trained enough to take action when serious problems arise. Of course for some teachers with appropriate training, skills, and motivation, they should be allowed to carry the tools necessary to save lives and deter attacks by armed killers.
Comment of the day!
NO! ABSOLUTLY NOT, in THIS case! The kids had just left the room - he knows who his students are, they heard the shots and screaming and ran right back to THEIR classroom. There was NO shooter with the group, as the shots were heard a distance away. So, that teacher is a complete ahole AND coward. There was NO reason not to get those kids back into the classroom and then lock the door, protocol or no protocol!
Cuz they could hear the shooting and screaming down the hall, plus, he wouldn't just be standing there with the kids, he'd be shooting them.
Thanks for the post and sharing details and remembrance
The teacher did the RIGHT THING!
(see, you're not the only one who can shout.)
You may be right, of course, but in that kind of situation, no one knows if there are multiple shooters, where they may be, etc.
I think that a frantic beating on the door and the student’s voice could be assessed in determining the situation.
But as horrible as it seems, if students were shot at his door, he probably made the right decision.
Definitely, people with guns ready are needed in these schools.
I think all the venom needs to be directed at the sheriff and the corruption associated with his policies, and the dereliction of the FBI. They made it all possible.
Why I said what I did was because I read the article, and I was referring back to the the kid, Gallagher, said.
You will quickly find that you are attempting to reason with someone who has an almost religious faith in the system, procedures and rules. If you look for it, you can find at least 3 on this thread.
To say that the teacher should have done the =decent= thing and opened the door is Heresy. There is no logic beyond that.
In the spirit of constructive criticism, I do know what you mean in your reply to me, I do that too, but in the other post it looked more like shouting.
I think you are right. Some of it stems from movie and tv where guns have never ending bullets.
Just like people expect local cops to be CSI or access to instant lab reports or that cops should shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand
Or cars will explode almost immediately after it wrecks so you should get out and stand around on the freeway waiting to be mowed down by an inattentive moron.
There is a serious disconnect in the population today caused by the disconnect between actual reality and the fictional portray of it in entertainment.
There are heroes in this tragedy but they are getting lost under the avalanche of the look at me’s.
Thank you Cadet Wang. May God’s glory, love, grace be yours. I will remember your name.
You are right... what people see on TV and movies is miles away from reality, but they don’t know that. For instance, I’m a teacher, so I really hate teacher movies. Man, it is nothing like what they show.
The current protocol is Run Hide Fight.
I guess that was under the “hide” part. Lock the door and the kid might not come in. They generally follow the path of least resistance.
If it was on the first floor, it should be followed by “toss a chair through a window and get the hell out.” Those are the instructions I’d given my kids when they went to a predominately jewish high school—right after Beslan. I alway figured the rich, white, jewish, suburban high school would be a nice target.
One of the coaches died for these kids. Perhaps another/others did. I wonder about kids taught for 8 years under Obama’s Education Czar, a NAMBLA type, to be little queen boys. Hell, back in the early 60’s we had a few fist fights. The guy I hated to see was the vice principal.
I wish it wasn’t.
I wish the comment of the day was any of saying “Damn, Broward Deputies put that maniac down before he could any more damage...”
But that’s not the case.
Never ever give up your guns. Because we’re sure as HELL on our own.
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