BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Metal detectors at an Alabama high school were not in use the day a 17-year-old student was killed in a shooting on campus, the district’s superintendent said Thursday.
Birmingham City Schools Superintendent Lisa Herring said the school system is reviewing security measures and protocols that were in place Wednesday, when Courtlin Arrington was fatally shot in a classroom at Huffman High School.
Denise Kendricks cries outside Huffman High School Thursday, March 8, 2018 as she talks to reporters about the shooting Wednesday at Huffman High School in Birmingham, Ala.shooting. (Joe Songer/AL.com via AP)
Huffman High School is seen behind Birmingham Police cars after at a shooting Wednesday, March 7, 2018, in Birmingham, Ala. At least one 17-year-old girl was killed in the shooting at the Alabama high school and one 17-year-old male student was injured, authorities said, adding they were investigating it as accidental. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)“We have not only heightened our procedures, but we are revamping and revisiting, with an extreme amount of urgency, those protocols, not just for Huffman High School, but for every single school in Birmingham,” Herring said at a news conference Thursday.
The superintendent said Huffman has more than 43 entry points with a combination of wand and stationary metal detectors in place, but they were not in use Wednesday. She didn’t give details about why.
Herring said Arrington, a senior who had aspirations to be a nurse, was a bright student “lost to senseless gun violence.”