WASHINGTON, D.C. –
For the first time since October of 2017, there were no school shootings in the entire United States this week, and police throughout the country are breathing a huge sigh of relief.
“Every week, you never know if it’s going to be your town that it happens, that your station is the next to get the call,” said Deputy Michael Rick of the Miami Police Department, a 23-year veteran. “So far, we’ve been lucky here. We have had plenty of other gun violence, but no school shootings. We’re always prepared, though. You have to be.”
The sentiments were echoed by hundreds of officers around the country that we spoke to, with nearly all of them saying that they’re dreading the day it happens in their town.
“It almost seems like it’s not an ‘if’ anymore, but a ‘when,'” said Chief Mario Francis of the Dallas-Forth Worth State Patrol. “I have 3 young kids in school in the area, and I don’t know what I’d do. All I know is, if I have to shoot a kid before he shoots my kid, I’ll goddamn do it.”