A University of South Florida football player was arrested over the weekend for allegedly firing a gun on campus.
University police say 21-year-old offensive lineman Benjamin Knox of DeLand is accused of firing at a dorm from a parking garage early Sunday morning. No one was injured.
The incident follows a series of deadly shootings earlier this month at colleges in Oregon, Arizona and Texas.
Florida State College at Jacksonville Security Director Gordon Bass says keeping everyone on FSCJ's five campuses and two centers safe depends largely on being prepared.
“All of our command staff just recently went through a new series of active shooter response and survival training. We’re in the process of training the remainder of our officers and we’re also offering that training to our employees and our students on our various campuses.”
That’s for education purposes only, however.
Bass says he doesn’t think making it legal for licensed students to carry guns on campus will make the school safer.
For one thing, Bass says, police officers in stressful situations miss what they’re shooting at nearly 80% of the time. But at least they’re taught to notice what else might be in their line of fire.
“Police are trained to look for the back stop — what’s behind the person or thing you’re shooting at," he said. "Is it a brick wall? Is it a piece of sheetrock and there’s somebody on the other side of that that a bullet’s going to penetrate?”
If there were to be an active shooter incident on an FSCJ campus, Bass says an emergency alert notifications will be sent via email, text and voice message to all staff, faculty and students.
