Biometric gun safes installed in South Carolina schools
By Jennifer Ready
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OCONEE COUNTY, South Carolina (WXII) — Biometric gun safes are being installed in 18 schools in the School District of Oconee County, according to the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office.
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Master Deputy Jimmy Watt said the safes are being installed in an undisclosed location in each school. School resource officers will be able to store their patrol rifles in the safe during the school day instead of their patrol car.
“In any active shooter situation, obviously seconds count,” Watt said. “The quicker that an officer, a deputy, a police officer, whomever can engage the threat and stop the threat is critical to saving lives. Also for longer distances down a long hallway, officers or deputies can be more accurate with a patrol rifle than they could be a handgun.”
The school’s SRO is the only person who will be able to access the rifle in the safe using their fingerprint. SROs will also be able to access the safe in their school or another school in the district using a code if there is an emergency.
Sergeant Keith Brooks has been a School Resource Officer for 17 years and 16.5 of those years have been at Walhalla High School.
“It gives us that time that we need, to shorten that time up so we can act quicker,” Brooks said.
Watt said they are hoping to start using the safes by the end of the school year and are currently working on a policy for SROs to safely and properly take the rifle from their patrol car to and from the safe each day. According to Watt, the safes were purchased by the Oconee Sheriff’s Foundation.
“The quicker we can engage and stop that threat and get that threat to focus on us with the proper tools to be able to do that in the most accurate way possible means more lives can be saved and that’s the reason why I believe and we believe, that having these biometric gun safes in schools are so critically important,” Watt said.
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