Calif. school to equip officers with high-powered rifles

This image provided by the Fontana Unified School District Police shows a Colt LE6940 semiautomatic rifle, one of 14 purchased by the Fontana Unified School District to help provide security for the school, in California. The weapons, which cost $1,000 each, are high-powered weapons that are accurate at longer range and can pierce body armor. / AP Photo/FUSD Police

FONTANA, Calif. The school police force in this Southern California city has acquired 14 high-powered semiautomatic rifles for officers to bring to campuses.

Fontana Unified School District police purchased 14 of the Colt LE6940 rifles last fall, and they were delivered the first week of December, a week before a gunman killed 26 students and educators at a Connecticut elementary school.

"I think it just further solidified the need to give our officers the tools they need to respond to an active shooter on campus," schools Police Chief Billy Green said Wednesday about the tragedy.

"If someone were to come onto one of our school campuses and kill our students ... and they were wearing body armor or were equipped with a rifle, our officers were not properly equipped to respond to the danger," Green said.

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The rifles were purchased to address a "critical vulnerability," although there has never been such an attack at any of the 45 Fontana campuses, the chief said. The 14 officers currently carry handguns, according to police officials.

The weapons, which cost $1,000 each, are high-powered weapons that are accurate at longer range and can pierce body armor.

The guns are stored in a fireproof safe at school police headquarters. Officers who have received 40 hours of training in their use can check them out and keep them in locked safes at high school and middle school police offices during school hours before returning them, Green said.

"They're not walking around telling kids, `Hurry up and get to class' with a gun around their neck," the chief said.

The guns did not require approval from the school board but member Leticia Garcia said she will ask the board to discuss the issue. There should have been a public discussion before they were purchased, Garcia said.

"Those rifles have ricocheting ammunition ... they can go right through people," Garcia said. "We're talking about a war-zone rifle, and so are we going to militarize our public schools? We have to provide a safe haven for people to learn ... but this, to me, seems a little bit too much."

Reaction at schools in Fontana on Wednesday was mixed.

Lorraine Meeks, the attendance supervisor at Fontana High School, said she was conflicted about the merits of having police officers armed with semiautomatic rifles.

"It does look pretty intense," she said. "But I know we have to keep up with what's going on all around. Our officers are armed anyways and I feel as long as they have the training I feel really safe."

Teresa Henriquez enrolled her 16-year-old son at the high school this week and said she was pleased to learn about the addition of semiautomatic rifles, but she said she worries about her son's safety after watching shootings at other schools.

"It's getting crazy everywhere," Henriquez said. "They are just trying to protect, and if they think that this is the best way to protect then so be it."



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Henriquez's son, James, said he did have concerns about the new policy.

"I think it's scary for the cops to keep them at school because if a shooting was going on, it would take quite a while to get them," he said. "And what if a student gets it? Then we have another student with a gun walking around."

The weapons are an uncomfortable but necessary evil, said BarBara L. Chavez, the board's vice president

"In my world, everything should be peaceful, we shouldn't hate each other," said the mother of five. "However, that's not the world we're living in. We're living in a violent world, crazies are out there constantly. ... We need to be prepared."

Fontana is a city of 200,000 about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

[RKMctrog007]

don't those look like the assault weapons the government is trying to ban, wait. I forgot. those are not assault rifles, they are emi automatics and don't meet the assault weapon description as set forth by the FBI.
one shot, one trigger pull. just like most .22 cal rifles

[oatka]

Sir, you forgot, some people are more equal than others.

[TomJohnn]

I've been to Fontana, the armpit of southern California. No one with any sense would live there to begin with.

[Bob_Owens]

To correct the ignorance of journalists poorly reporting this story, AR-15s are intermediate-power rifles, and are not remotely high powered. They are used by law enforcement and civilians because the .223 round does not over-penetrate walls or the bodies of bad men with as much energy as pistol bullets, much less legitimate high-power rifles.

As rifle shooting instructor, I'd point out the fact that such arms are easier to aim more accurately than pistols, meaning the chance of a first-shot hit is higher as well, which reduces the threat to bystanders, which in this case, are schoolchildren.

Here's a tip, CNS News: hire a gun expert that can write and can separate hysterical fantasy from tactical reality.

If you're lucky, maybe you can hire one away from the NRA.

[RKMctrog007]

I am so glad someone else mentioned that. The .223 wasn't designed for high penitration (outside of "penitrators").
The story I have always been told (if anyone knows hoe to verify this speak out) the .223 was designed to hurt a target, not kill it.
in war if you take out a person you have one man down. if you hurt him you take out about 10 or so to carry him back and provide protection to those that carry him back.

again, I don't have anywhere to point you to this so if someone else does, sing out.

[dj4240]

No wacko will attempt to shoot up a school with well armed security,and almost all of the mass shootings have took place in the so called "gun free zones" which seem to attract wackos like a moth to a flame.

[skeezix06]

Complete and total insanity.

[stopkillingourwilderness]

exactly, just look at the fine fellow who shot up the army base! oh, wait.

[skeezix06]

If the school is that unsafe, I wouldn't let my child attend. I'd either home school or move.

[mav547166]

Well it is not perfect, but it might be the difference between 3 or 4 casualties, and 26.

[taylorsucram]

JUST A COMMENT ~ You do know that the 2nd Amendment was enacted to keep "slaves" in their place. You see many southern States and plantations were out-numbered by their slaves and, of course, many uprisings and rebellions took place. The militia remained the principal means of protecting the social order and preserving white control over an enormous black population. This is pretty well-documented history, thanks to the work of Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus.

An armed and well regulated militia was the answer to slaves killing off their owners and heading for the northern states.

DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT .... GOOGLE IT AND TAKE YOUR PICK!

Now the Black Panthers responded to racial violence (by white police) by patrolling black neighborhoods brandishing guns -- in an effort to police the police. The fear of black people with firearms sent shock-waves across white communities, and conservative lawmakers immediately responded with gun-control legislation.

Then Gov. Ronald Reagan, now lauded as the patron saint of modern conservatism (and the same man that shut down California's mental institutions, setting these nuts loose on an unsuspecting public), told reporters in California that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons." Reagan claimed that the Mulford Act, as it became known, "would work no hardship on the honest citizen."

The NRA actually helped craft similar legislation in states across the country. Fast-forward to 2013, and it is a white-male dominated NRA, largely made up of Southern conservatives and gun owners from the Midwest and Southwestern states, that argues "do not tread on me" in the gun debate."

In other words if a black man starts brandishing AK-47s and AR-15s it's time for "Gun-Control". But if a white man starts brandishing AK-47s and AR-15s, it's their right due to the 2nd Amendment.

ONLY IN AMERICA ...

[Bob_Owens]

You sick fantasy is precisely that; a sick fantasy. The academic that crafted this poppycock was discredited, as soon as it was discovered that one of his primary sources was forced to resign for committing fraud.


I'd also note that while the Democratic Party created the KKK in Reconstruction after the civil war, and created the nation's first gun control laws to keep blacks unarmed and defenseless against the night riders, it was the NRA that boldly ventured south with rifles to arm blacks and trained them to shoot in self defense.

Do attempt to use your head as something other than a hat-rack.

[RKMctrog007]

another left wing nut makeing up his own point of view to discribe something he has never read before.
got your head stuck in the obama kool aid again, huh?

[retiredgustav]

I hope thy keep them locked up, otherwise if they are stolen they just added to the problem.

[retiredgustav]

I hope thy keep them locked up, otherwise if they are stolen they just added to the problem.