Exclusive: Denver Public Schools Safety Consultant Murphy Robinson on his charge
The man tapped to help draft a new safety plan for Denver Public Schools says one of the most important relationships a school district can have is with its police department. Murphy Robinson spoke exclusively to CBS News Colorado's Shaun Boyd about why DPS hired him and what his charge is.
He has developed and implemented safety plans for three cities and thousands of schools around the country and owns his own security company. But what you may not know about Robinson is that he was the victim of an active shooter in his own workplace six years ago, something that he says changed his life.
"From that moment on I knew this would be part of my life's work."
In February 2017, swat surrounded Englewood Civic Center after a gunman holed up inside. Robinson, who was Englewood City Manager at the time, fought the suspect, potentially saving countless lives.
He has also served as Assistant City Manager of Brighton and Chief Operating Officer, Public Safety Manager and Deputy Mayor of Denver, implementing safety plans in all three cities.
Today, he is President and CEO of Robinson Corporations Security Group, and the man DPS is counting on to improve school safety.
"My goal is to get a little bit more granular. The leadership is taking it seriously. They see the issues. That's why I was asked to join the team."
He is back in the same schools he once attended. Robinson has helped more than 40,000 schools around the world implement a standard response protocol as a board member of the "I Love U Guys" Foundation, a non-profit started by the parents of Emily Keyes, who was shot and killed at Platte Canyon High School in 2006.
"It's implemented in DPS today," says Robinson. "But what we're finding is the training has to be refreshed. We're finding that the protocol itself has to be practiced more... because frankly, we had two administrators shot. That means something in our process failed."
Processes and procedures among the safety components Robinson will examine at DPS, along with personnel. He says the district has more than one hundred school safety employees, in addition to school resource officers in some schools after the shooting at East High. Robinson is in favor of the SRO program but says there has to be buy-in from schools and they have to be a part of the decision-making.
While not every school needs an SRO, he says, they do need a relationship with the police, "One of the most important relationships a school district or any school can have is with their police department, whether it's an SRO program or it's just with district officers, it is so vital that police have a presence in every school."
Robinson is also studying security systems and technology at DPS. Weapons detection systems or metal detectors, he says, are important but schools need to make sure they have personnel and policies in place for them to be effective. He says it's not "one-size-fits-all". DPS already has cameras and door alarms in its schools he says, "It is the consistent practice of making sure we're auditing those security systems, making sure they're working properly, that I'm going to be reviewing as we move forward in this contract."
And he won't be doing the work alone he says, "It is vital that we get the input of the community. It is vital that we get the input of parents. It is vital that we get the input of the people who do it every day - the principals, the assistant principals, the teachers. Being safe is only fifty percent of what's important. Feeling safe is the other fifty percent. By the end of this, I hope parents can look back and say DPS did right by my kid. Murphy Robinson did right by my kid. And that my kid feels safer today than they did yesterday."
The district is also soliciting input from parents, students and staff. About 7,700 participated in a survey ranking solutions to school safety. Parents ranked police officers first followed by discipline policies, while students put mental health first followed by discipline, and staff listed discipline first. Robinson also thinks enforcing discipline policies is critical and he says he will be addressing that in his evaluation. He plans to give the district his report within the next couple of weeks.
