Columbine Survivor Now Working For Bloomington Schools Addresses Uvalde Shooting

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Questions continue to mount surrounding the response time to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

In Sunday night's Talking Points, Esme Murphy talks with a Columbine survivor who is working to make a Twin Cities school district safer in the event of an active shooter.

The shooting at Columbine High School 23 years ago left 15 people dead, including the two teenage gunmen, who killed themselves as authorities closed in. Since Columbine, there have been 14 mass school shootings. An estimated 185 children, educators and other people have been killed and at least 360 have been injured.

Schools all over the country routinely practice active shooter drills. In fact, the Uvalde school did a training drill with law enforcement just two months before the massacre.

Rick Kaufman is the director of emergency management for Bloomington Public Schools. Twenty-three years ago he was a spokesperson for the Columbine schools and was at the school when the shooting happened. He has written guides for schools on how to respond to active shooters, and like many critics he agrees authorities waited too long to enter the classroom in Uvalde.

Kaufman was a guest on WCCCO Sunday Morning.

"The first persons on scene, you go to the sound of the shots or the commotion if you will, and you're trained to neutralize that situation. You do not wait for others. You go," Kaufman said. "And if you unfortunately are taken down, the next person steps us."

In Uvalde, 19 officers waited 50 minutes outside the classroom before confronting the gunman, a delay they admit allowed the massacred to continue. An investigation into the response is underway.

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