SAN ANTONIO — The goal of councilman Manny Pelaez is improving mass shooting prevention and response plans for local schools.
He says, “Doing nothing is not going to be a strategy that parents will think is reasonable in the event that something terrible like Uvalde happens.”
“We are one of the only major cities in the United States that has not experienced a catastrophic mass shooting tragedy. And in many way it’s just because we’ve been lucky,” Pelaez said.
The district 8 councilman explained that the city council oversees a city of adults and children and the children don’t stop being constituents once they cross the threshold into a school. Pelaez feels city council has a role to play in assisting schools with identifying innovative ways to enhance the safety at schools. He knows local law enforcement agencies have a quick response plan for active shooter scenarios but he feels that isn’t enough.
“What you’ve seen in almost every mass shooting is an analysis after the fact and everyone identifies all the opportunities missed to have prevented the mass shooting,” Pelaez said.
His hope is that the city council will identify ways and begin long-term conversations regarding school safety. He feels there is a lack of support from the state and because of that he says sometimes responsibilities like this fall on the city to take care of.
“This last legislative session, the legislature focused on removing scary books from libraries,” he said. “With the zeal and the energy that most parents wished they would have dedicated to making schools safer,” Pelaez said.
Being a father himself, Pelaez understands what parents go through when dropping their kids off at school.
"I speak to parents all over San Antonio and the one thing they tell me is when they drop their kid off at a public school in San Antonio, as they’re pulling out of a parking lot, they invariably think, ‘What if this is the last time I see my kid?"
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