A security guard credited with capturing one of the suspects in this week’s Colorado school shooting fired his weapon inside the school, reports say.

The rampage that left one student dead and eight people injured underscores new questions about the use of private guards in schools versus police.

The STEM School Highlands Ranch outside Denver contracted with a security guard, a former Marine who has not been identified. He had stayed out of the public eye since Tuesday, when two suspects opened fire at the charter school. 

On Thursday, the Associated Press confirmed reports he had fired his weapon, citing a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case. The official did not address whether anyone was hit when the gun fired.

“The actions of the people inside the building are still part of the open investigation,” a spokesperson for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

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Contracted security guards, who may be armed or unarmed, differ from school resource officers, who are sworn police officers with tactical training who spend time developing relationships with schools.

Even experts in the field of school security are split on what kind of personnel leads to a “safer” school. 

School resource officers are “carefully selected and specifically trained,” said Mo Canady, the executive director of the trade association for those officers.  The group trains thousands of police officers in how to develop relationships with youth.

“We want the gun to be in the right hands,” Canady added.

Most schools don’t have a school resource officer

In reality, most public schools don’t have a school resource officer. Only about 40% employ one, said Jeff Allison, a special advisor for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. 

Other options for schools include hiring a retired law enforcement officer, creating an in-house school police department, contracting with off-duty police and paying them overtime to work during school hours, or asking school parents who are sworn officers to lend a hand.

Ken Trump, a longtime school security expert, believes the best option is to have a trained, professional law enforcement officer in a school.

“Police officers are trained to factor in that there’s a much greater civilian population around them in a public setting where armed conflict might occur,” said Trump, who is not related to the president.  

Both police and armed guards would have the authority to fire their guns in school during a life-threatening situation. But whether they should, Trump said, depends on the situation.

“Armed officers, whether they are security or police, are required to follow use-of-force (guidance), where the force used by the officer is in proportion to the force being used by the assailant,” Trump said.

“Obviously, in the context of an active shooter in a school, deadly force may be necessary when the assailants are causing death or serious bodily injury.”

But Trump also acknowledged that even the best training cannot predict how people will respond in a life-threatening situation.

For example, last year, the armed school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, failed to charge into the school and apprehend the shooter that killed 17 students.

“You don’t know what their emotional response is going to be under stress,” Trump said.

‘Are you going to shoot that person?’

At least three students have been hailed as heroes for disarming one of the suspects during Tuesday’s shooting. One of them, Kendrick Castillo, was shot and killed during the struggle. A second, Joshua Jones, is recovering at home after being shot twice.

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The armed security guard at the school was employed by Boss High Level Protection, which was started by a SWAT team leader who responded to the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.

The company’s owner, Grant Whitus, told The Associated Press the guard ran to the area of the shootings and confronted one of the armed students in a hallway.

“He doesn’t even realize how many lives he saved by stopping a school shooting,” Whitus said Wednesday.

An attorney for the guard, Robert Burk, said his client acted in the best interests of protecting the children at the school and helped resolve the situation without further bloodshed.

Contracted private security firms work just fine for many schools, especially because they are cheaper and schools have more flexibility around scheduling their hours, said Sheldon Greenberg, a professor of public safety leadership at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education.

“People tend to think of contracted security as an ill-prepared rent-a-cop,” he said. “Even if they are contracted security officers … they can be pretty well-oriented. They may or may not be armed. There’s a whole spectrum of examples.” 

And, he said, there’s a big misconception that any security person will stop a shooter.

“In the best circumstances a police officer shoots accurately 27% of the time,” said Greenberg, who is a former police officer. “Are you going to shoot that person with kids running around? It’s not as simple as you think.”

Trevor Hughes contributed reporting from Highlands Ranch, Colorado. The Associated Press also contributed to this report.

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