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Laurel Highlands hires armed security officer

By Mike Tony mtony@heraldstandard.Com 3 min read
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The Laurel Highlands School Board hired an assistant to the chief of security at a special meeting Tuesday, a move that will add a second armed security personnel member to the district.

The board unanimously hired James Pierce, a retired state trooper, as assistant to Chief of Police Richard Barron at a rate of $18 an hour with a 200-day contract, effective Mar. 15.

“This is the step in the right direction,” board President Melvyn Sepic said.

Pierce will have the power to carry a firearm and also issue citations pending approval by the Fayette County Court of Common Pleas, which district Solicitor Gary Frankhouser projected to be granted by Pierce’s effective start date.

“I can carry a weapon now. I just can’t arrest (yet),” Pierce told Frankhouser during the meeting, saying that he was certified in accordance with state Act 235, which provides for the training and licensing of watch guards, protective patrolmen, and detectives and criminal investigators as well as possession and use of lethal weapons.

Superintendent Jesse Wallace said that Pierce could possibly be based in the middle school but added that his location is to be determined. Barron is based in the high school, Wallace said.

Barron said he already has arrest powers, and Wallace said Barron is currently the only employee to carry a firearm. The district has an additional 10 unarmed officers throughout its buildings every day.

“We’re going to make sure our schools are safe, our kids are safe, our teachers are safe,” board member Beverly Beal said.

The board approved a resolution on Feb. 15 to arm school security guards, following a shooting threat at Laurel Highlands High School last month.

Laurel Highlands officials had received word of a threat to shoot students at the high school in January, the same day that a 14-year-old Uniontown Area High School student’s planned shooting at UAHS was thwarted.

Wallace said it remained at the board’s future discretion whether to arm any number of those officers.

Uniontown Area School District on Feb. 5 hired five security guards as police officers and authorized them to begin carrying firearms, pending court approval.

Pierce was named Trooper of the Year for 2015 by the Pennsylvania State Police for the Troop B area, honored for work including investigations into a string of armed robberies and the reopening of cold case files over the previous two years.

Pierce retired in January 2017.

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