The Latest on Dallas High School Shooting

I have an incredible job. I absolutely love what I do for a living, but like any job, there are some things I’d rather never have to do again. One of those is talking about things like school shootings, mass shootings, and the like, which I had to do on Tuesday.

The shooting at a Dallas high school happened in the early afternoon local time. At the time, we didn’t know very much at all.

Here’s what we know as of this writing.

A shooting was reported at Dallas’s Wilmer-Hutchins High School at around 1 p.m. local time, with Dallas Fire-Rescue confirming four people aged between 15 and 18 were injured, of whom three sustained gunshot wounds. All those wounded were male and their injuries ranged from serious to non-life threatening.

During a press conference on Tuesday, authorities said they believed they had identified the shooter, but did not provide a name. Dallas Independent School District announced on Tuesday evening that a suspect had been taken into custody and is being held at Dallas County Jail but did not provide any further details.

Citing multiple sources, ABC News reported the incident was student-on-student violence. Speaking to local network NBC Dallas-Fort Worth, one 11th-grade student said the shooting was the result of a dispute over a game of dice, but this has not been officially confirmed.

During the press conference, Dallas Independent School District Assistant Police Chief Christina Smith said the firearm used “did not come through during regular intake time” adding “it was not a failure of our staff, of our protocols, of the machinery that we have.”

So, there have been changes since I first wrote about this, which is to be expected.

There were four people injured, not three as was said in the earlier news reports. A suspect has been arrested, which was far more than we had on Tuesday, and it was student-on-student violence.

We still don’t know how many of the injured were shot versus injuries caused by the chaos that’s going to spring up around any such incident.

The fact that the school district says that the gun didn’t come in through “regular intake time” is interesting. 

One would imagine a high school in Dallas, Texas, already has things like metal detectors or some other security measures in place designed specifically to prevent students from bringing guns to school.

The problem is that no system is foolproof. My son’s high school had similar measures, and I figured out in two minutes how to get a gun on that campus without even blinking. I never tested it because I had absolutely no reason to, but it wouldn’t have been very difficult, especially if you had help.

So it looks like the student got a gun by bypassing the security that was in place, then used it to shoot at least one person.

He’s now in custody, thankfully, but the incident is far from over.

Those who were hurt will have recovery time. How much recovery remains to be seen, but the more severe the injury, the more prolonged the recovery will be. Then there’s the psychological damage to the student body. They’ve been told all their lives that their lives are filled with danger. While most never see it happen, those who do are already primed to think the worst, and that’s going to play on their psyches.

I’m sure we’ll be revisiting this story in the future because the usual suspects aren’t going to let this go, even though it sounds like gun control already failed here.