Using the Bearacade to protect students

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US gun debate: Schools take matters into own hands by using devices like the Bearacade

By North America correspondent Ben Knight
Thu 5 Nov 2015
Photo: There were about 120,000 gun related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010. (Supplied)

Every day students at Mentor High School walk into class past a strange looking device hanging on the wall. It's not large — about 30cm square, with reflecting red and white stripes — just as you might find on a fire extinguisher. But this device is there not to protect students from fire — it is designed for a uniquely American danger: the school shooter.

"We have had a lot of school shootings in the United States," Mentor High School superintendent Matt Miller told 7.30. "They are not slowing down and they are not stopping. So we have to take measures on our side to combat that."

In this town, the threat is very real. Just 20 minutes down the road from Mentor is Chardon High school where, in 2012, three students were killed by a fellow student.

"It really shook us pretty hard," Mr Miller said. "It's so close to home. We deal with safety procedures almost every single day."



The anti-shooting device used in Mentor is called the Bearacade. It is one of a number of similar devices on the market, but this one was invented in Cleveland by Bill Cushwa, who was on a neighbouring school board at the time of the Chardon shooting.

If an active shooter alert goes out, teachers use it to put their classroom into lockdown; sliding it under the door, then dropping a metal pin through it into a hole in the floor. The door cannot be opened and the device cannot be destroyed by gunfire. The idea is to buy time until help arrives.

The Bearacade has now been installed in 200 school districts, in 23 states.

More here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-...ake-measures-to-combat-mass-shootings/6916100

I don't think these would work in the schools that I have been in. The doors all open out to allow easy exit in case of fire.
 

Same as I remember from the schools I went to. Doors opened out from the room. Doors opening in would likely be used if no lockers in the halls as you would not want to open a door into people traffic in the halls.
 
There probably is a way to lock any door with a sliding dead bolt...
 


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