RSCD board votes to station police outside some schools after Franklin High shooting

ROCHESTER, N.Y. In a 7-0 vote, the Rochester City School Board of Education agreed to have police outside some city schools after a person fired shots as three students were entering the Franklin Educational Campus building Thursday morning.

A parent says this video shows what really happened in the shooting outside Franklin High school. It shows where the shooter came from and when he started shooting. The extended video from a different security camera at Franklin.

The video shows the 16-year-old who would soon be the target. He appears to look over his right shoulder, as if the threat was coming in the direction of Hudson Avenue. RPD says the conflict started on Hudson Avenue two blocks away from the school.

Instead, a car comes from the opposite direction on Norton Street and stops in front of the school. The shooter jumps out and starts running towards the 16-year-old. The shooter chases, and appears to shoot, at the 16-year-old who is running for his life towards the front doors of the school.

The teenager crashes into the front door of the school where two girls were waiting to get inside. The shooter fires at least once and then it appears as if the gun jammed. The shooter turns and eventually runs back to the car. The students scramble into the building.

The video was provided by a parent of children in city schools who asked not to be identified.

Brean: “Have you worried about a situation like this?”

School parent: “With the violence that goes on in the streets, it’s a lot of the teenagers, so of course at all the high schools. We need these officers back in schools. I get that the officers’ and students’ relationships haven’t been the best over the years. We could work on that.”
 
At drop off this morning at Franklin, Maria Thomas said she and her daughter are nervous.

“The city is going crazy so she’s scared, but she wants to learn, so she doesn’t want to skip school,” Thomas said.

Security at Franklin is unarmed. Their union chief is Dan DiClemente and they would like police back inside schools.

“But that seems like beating a dead horse more or less,” he said. “The school board is not for restoring them and even if they did, I’m not sure they could staff them with the shortage of police officers.”

The money for RPD in schools was cut in 2020. The school district and board agreed to put police at five high schools at drop and pick up.

Cynthia Elliott, the president of the school board, said they don’t want police in school. Police could be back in front of the schools by Wednesday or as soon as the agreement is completed. It’ll run through the rest of the school year.

To bring in the police, the board budgeted $370,000 paid for through general funds, grants or other sources. Police officers will be stationed outside Franklin, Wilson, Edison Tech, Northeast and East.

In 2020, Rochester police officers were removed from inside the schools after years of protests and concerns about students being criminalized by officers. It went into effect during the pandemic.

Many board members were on the fence about bringing officers back, but board commissioner Amy Maloy is in support of having officers outside of the school. In a text, she said in part:

“I did vote to remove SROs because my own kids have a very different lived experience than others with the police in schools, namely positive ones. I continue to support RPD presence outside of schools. I don’t want to criminalize students by this. Rather, we have students and families who have asked for this and who have the right to feel safe going to and from school. I would never forgive myself if something happened at arrivals and dismissals that I could have prevented. People intent on breaking the law or harming fellow students are deterred by police officers protecting kids at arrival and dismissal.”

More about Franklin High School incident

• Exclusive video shows more details about shots fired outside Franklin High School (Jan. 10)
• Four Rochester school district employees put on leave after leak of security video showing students escaping gunman (Jan. 9)
• Officers stationed outside Rochester high schools after Franklin student was nearly shot (Jan. 9)
  ‘I watched somebody’s children ducking bullets’: Video shows shooting at Franklin HS (Jan. 6)
• …“School is supposed to be a second safe place to be, besides home, and unfortunately it isn’t” (Jan. 6)
• Suspect chased student and fired shots outside Frankin High school, no one injured (Jan. 5)