Uniontown Area hires five school police officers, takes steps to allow them to carry firearms
Uniontown Area hires five school police officers and took steps to allow them to carry firearms.
Machesky
UNIONTOWN — Five Uniontown Area School District police officers will begin reporting to school buildings armed once authorized by the court system.
The school district took another step Monday night to ramp up security following the arrest of a 14-year-old high school student who allegedly planned to shoot four people at the city school last month.
The school board Monday unanimously hired James Baranowski, William “Allen” Zimmerman, Danny David, David Scarlett and Donald Marietta as school police officers.
The individuals were already employed by the district as security guards.
School directors authorized district solicitor Michael Brungo to petition the Fayette County Court of Common Pleas to appoint the officers with the full authority granted to a school police officer under the Pennsylvania School Code.
A judge can grant a school police officer the power to arrest, to issue citations for summary offenses and to detain students until the arrival of local law enforcement.
Effective upon court approval, the five officers will join district police Chief Donald Gmitter with full arrest powers and the authority to carry firearms, adding the presence of armed school police officers in nearly every district building.
“The board just took a big step this evening in having additional police officers … and allowing them, pending permission, to carry (a firearm),” said district Superintendent Dr. Charles Machesky.
Machesky said following the thwarted attack on Jan. 26 that the district vowed to strengthen its security in all schools. The district has begun checking every student who enters a school building via a metal detector or hand-held wand.
Police found several weapons in the bedroom of the 14-year-old Henry Clay Township student, including a semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun, two lever-action rifles, a revolver, two machetes, throwing knives and a crossbow with arrows.
Since the incident, the district has rolled out new security measures, revised several policies and procedures and invested in additional security equipment.
Machesky said the district has ordered a slew of items to be utilized by its security team, including two Smiths Detection X-ray inspection machines to search bags entering school buildings, as well as additional metal detectors and hand-held scanning wands.
Other new features include expandable, portable gates installed in schools to restrict access to the rest of the building during extracurricular events, door alarms to prevent students from exiting buildings during the day, and panic buttons for building secretaries, said Machesky.
“This just isn’t a wish list. These are things that have been ordered and are on their way,” Machesky said.
Cameras installed at every entrance of each school building will be monitored throughout the school day by security guards, he added. An open door will emit a signal that will notify a guard in order to avoid doors being propped open by students.