Hero Who Foiled California School Shooting Advocates Arming Security Officers

Southern California El Camino High School students and their parents are resting far easier knowing school district safety officer Marino Chavez — and others like him — are smart, quick, thoughtful and taking action on a regular basis to keep kids safe.

Chavez added the critical “do something” to the clearly inadequate “See something, say something” mantra that failed so many victims at a Parkland, Florida, high school last week.

Last Friday, thanks to Chavez, a student who threatened to carry out a school shooting — and had access to the guns and ammunition to carry it out — was arrested before he had a chance to cause any harm. In this case, unlike at Parkland, the system worked. But it took a proactive security professional — and one who currently does his job unarmed — to make that happen.

“Marino did what the FBI did not do,” said host Laura Ingraham Thursday night during “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, praising Chavez’s actions in a segment of the show. He was a featured guest as well.

“Which is why armed security at schools is a great idea — the argument against it is absurd,” said additional guest Jim Hanson, president of Security Studies Group.

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“There’s a famous saying from the wild west: God created men. Samuel Colt made them equal with the peacemaker. Well, the Left has made one crazy person with a gun more equal, because now, they’re the only ones armed on too many campuses. And we need to change that,” he added.

Hanson’s organization describes itself as a “provocative, next-generation think tank” that focuses on “defending the value of American power against the true threats we face.” Hanson served in the U.S. Army Special Forces and conducted counterterrorism efforts.

Chavez, the humble hero, was an armed officer before he started with the school district in California. At El Camino, he carries out his duties as a security officer while unarmed — that’s worth emphasizing. When Ingraham asked him if he would prefer to be armed, he emphatically replied, “Yes. Armed would be better.”

“I could do more for the district [if I were armed],” he said. “A lot of officers have the training, so they’re the ones that should be armed, should be standing outside in the quad in the campus, showing off the uniform, showing that we are not an easy victim. That we will shoot back if you come and attack a student on campus.”

The campus Chavez protects, El Camino High School, is in Whittier, about 40 minutes southeast of Los Angeles. Just two days after the massacre in Parkland, Chavez overheard a 17-year-old student mumbling something after lunch about “shooting up the campus.”

When Chavez questioned him, the student admitted what he’d said, including that he would do it within three weeks. He then quickly recanted, trying to play it off as a joke.

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Chavez didn’t buy it.

He alerted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department with concerns over the disgruntled student’s statements. The student had had a dispute with a teacher at the school earlier in the day over wearing headphones in the classroom, KTLA reported.

Chavez’s instincts were spot on. When investigators went to the student’s home, they found a cache of weapons and ammunition. The cache included “two semi-automatic rifles, two handguns and 90 high-capacity magazines,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

“A lot of officers have the training, so they’re the ones that should be armed, should be standing outside in the quad in the campus, showing off the uniform, showing that we are not an easy victim. That we will shoot back if you come and attack a student on campus.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell, too, appears to agree that Chavez’s action may have helped avert a tragedy. “McDonnell said he believed the student had an ‘extensive’ discipline history and was ‘moving in the direction’ of an attack,” The Washington Post reported.

The student, whose identity was withheld because he is a minor, was arrested for making a criminal threat and is being held without bail, The Post reported. His older brother, 28-year-old Daniel Barcenas, to whom the cache allegedly belongs, was also arrested. One of the guns in the home, a rifle, was unregistered. Criminal counts with which Barcenas was charged include possession of an assault weapon and bringing high-capacity magazines from Texas.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and regular contributor to LifeZette.

(photo credit, homepage image: El Camino High School; article image: El Camino High School)