Teacher in Custody Sparks Twitter Debate About Arming Educators

Social media reactions were swift after police responded to a report of “shot or shots fired” at Dalton High School in north Georgia on Wednesday.

Police reported that a teacher was brought into custody after said teacher was barricaded in a classroom. Multiple local media outlets reported that the teacher was believed to be armed; while police have not confirmed that detail or released any information on the teacher’s identity or what caused the situation, social media has reacted strongly to the incident.

Many wrote that the incident was a direct argument against arming teachers and faculty members to prevent school shootings.

One Dalton High School student wrote passionately, “Please don’t tell me a damn thing about arming teachers. Please don’t tell me that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

“A teacher has been taken into custody today after a ‘shots fired’ report at Dalton High School. And people are talking about arming these teachers?” one person wrote.

“A TEACHER has been taken into custody after a security incident at Dalton High School in Georgia. Shots reportedly fired,” one person said. “But, yes. let’s arm the teachers.”

“Arm the teachers – what could go wrong???” someone else wrote.

“So shots were fired at Dalton High School by a TEACHER. But sure, let’s just go ahead and give all of them guns and cross our fingers that they don’t shoot our kids,” one person wrote.

“That’s why we shouldn’t arm the teachers,” someone said.

Police said on social media that no children were injured during the incident, except for a student who sustained an ankle injury while running inside the school during the evacuation. The student was reportedly being treated by emergency services at the school.

Dalton Police and Georgia State Patrol responded to the incident, which occurred early Wednesday afternoon.

Students were evacuated to the Northwest Georgia Trade Center, a convention center in the surrounding area, where parents were instructed to pick up their kids. Police told parents not to go to Dalton High School, because it was locked down.

During the incident, police said they had barricaded a subject who was believed to be a teacher inside a classroom and that they had evacuated the school. Not long after, police said they had a teacher in custody.

Dalton High School reportedly had an increased police presence last Thursday after the discovery of a threatening note by students on the Wednesday before, Daily Citizen reports. The threat resulted in increased patrols at all city schools and a drop in attendance after Dalton Public Schools posted a video from Dalton High Principal Steve Bartoo to social media informing students and parents of the threat.

Five or six extra police officers were on campus then in addition to the school resource officer who is normally there.

A juvenile was arrested for making threats against Whitfield County Schools as area schools were on heightened alert on that Thursday. Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Paul Woods said the juvenile had used a photo of another juvenile with a gun in a social media post and had directed threats at Whitfield County Schools.

Wednesday’s incident comes exactly two weeks after a former student shot and killed 14 students and three faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The confessed shooter, Nikolas Cruz, used an AR-15 rifle and faces 17 charges of premeditated murder.