Safety Of Children AT MSD More Important Than Protecting Gun-Toting Student With “Two Magazines With Rounds In Them”, Staff Need To Be Fired

There are those times when the public reaches the saturation point about an issue brewing for far too long.  That time has arrived for the safety of students at Madison Public Schools following the ludicrousness that occurred this spring. This week a news story on the front page of the Wisconsin State Journal about school employees taking the side of a gun-toting criminal instead of the larger need for the safety of all the students in the care of school staff was jarring.

The story from La Follette High School starts with a lead paragraph that had me reading the whole article on the front stoop after removing the blue plastic bag.  No waiting to read it after pouring a cup of coffee due to the story’s gravitas. On at least two occasions school staff objected to police arresting at least one student who brought a gun to school, including one case in which two staffers lied about being the students’ legal guardians.

Kyshawn M. Bankston, 18, was charged May 9 with possession of a firearm on school grounds and carrying a concealed weapon after being arrested at the school two days earlier. Police had been called to the school about an unrelated robbery, but while there they were informed by staff that Bankston might have a gun and were asked for help searching his backpack.

Police found a handgun, two magazines with rounds in them, a scale and an empty plastic bag that had contained marijuana, and as they moved to arrest Bankston, he lunged for the gun and had to be restrained, according to police.

It was while Bankston was being arrested that an unnamed “security assistant” at the school became “erratic and upset” at police for making the arrest, according to a screenshot of part of the police report on the incident that was shared with the Wisconsin State Journal.

“We’re supposed to protect kids here,” the security assistant reportedly told principal Mat Thompson. “This is the second time you’ve done this to [Bankston].”

Police said in the report that “the staff member was strongly implying that MPD was at fault for an adult student bringing a gun onto school grounds and resisting our attempts at arrest.”

It was in this case that then-La Follette staff members Zeyheari Powell and Brittany McKinney told police they were the “legal guardians” of two male students being investigated in the case, according to the police report, which notes that a check of school records showed they were not their guardians.

McKinney then followed officers as they escorted the arrested student out of the building, “yelling something to the effect of, ‘They knew what they were doing,’ and, ‘They are doing this on purpose so all the students can see this.’”

A screenshot of part of a Madison police report obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal in which the officer reports that a La Follette staff member objected to police arresting a student for allegedly having a gun in school. The police department has declined to release the full report, saying the investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Police say in the report that they waited until students were back in their classrooms before taking the student out of the “nearest exit.” Police say McKinney and Powell later followed the arresting officer to the Central District police station, where someone presented herself at the window as the “mom” of one of the students.

“Based on the time and proximity of McKinney, I believed it was McKinney” who pretended to be the teen’s mother, the report says. Later in the report, police note that the boy’s real mother also showed up at the police station and had contact with officers.

With all those who claim to be or actually are the parents, one thing is most clear. There is not a lot of parenting going on for a young man in dire need of it.

The facts of the article about Bankston who brought a gun on school grounds and the behavior of some school staff are staggeringly troubling.  While the school district has far too often needed to deal with the violence and crime that impacts our society, what occurred is simply more than can be accepted by the taxpayers who pay for the education of our youth. And expect school staff to always make sure students are safe! The vast majority of the public is not blind with delusions about those who carry a gun to a school or how to deal with a hoodlum and repeated law-breaker.  

Let us be honest.  When it comes to gun crimes, be it the story from a high school or the illegal actions of Hunter Biden, we must not accept lawbreakers. Either gun laws have meaning, or they are mere words to make us feel better.  Enough of the equivocating and trying to select where such laws are to be enforced. If we are correct, and we are about Donald Trump not being above the law, and how our laws need to be applied equally to all in our society, then let us also state plainly that it applies to those who break statutes about gun laws. Enough of the liberal guilt which too often clouds over the facts when it comes to such cases.

I have written over 600 posts about gun violence and needed gun control measures on this blog. I do not mince my words when it comes to the obscene violence and cost to society from guns or their owners. It is heartbreaking to learn after a national gun tragedy that parents either bought a gun or in some way aided a teenager in having access to one. In the case above we had taxpayer-funded school employees go out of their way to prevent the laws about gun control from being enforced. Those who cared more about the student with a gun and loaded rounds rather than the whole school community must be fired. If we cannot trust them to best serve the greater good every hour of the school day we can never trust them for anything when it comes to student safety.