(WXYZ) — A deadly shooting at a school in Texas has left 19 children dead and two adults killed.
It happened at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a heavily Latino community about 85 miles west of San Antonio. Three people wounded in the attack are hospitalized in serious condition.
“What happened in Uvalde is a horrific tragedy," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
Police said the gunman, an 18-year-old man, was killed at Robb Elementary.
In the wake of the shooting, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard spoke with us this morning to talk about the precautions in place in Oakland County, especiailly after the deadly Oxford High School shooting nearly six months ago.
Below are his answers, which have been slightly edited for length and clarity.
What message do you have for the Oxford community and for parents and students in metro Detroit?
We’re here for them. We’re doing everything we possibly can that their students, kids, the community at large knows that we’re on that line and we’re ready to do whatever it takes to keep them safe.
Also that we’ll connect them with mental health services or anything they might need at this time because we know this is another huge punch in the gut. Even if it’s just to listen, we’re here for you.
What kind of precautions are in place to keep kids safe and what does that plan look like in Oakland County?
We’ve been pushing for more training and more interaction among all police agencies and fire agencies.
We were among the best prepared in the nation for many many years. We have been training together. We all train on the same active shooter platform so we can work seamlessly together, but we need to do more of that.
We’re pushing for a training center that will be holistic, that will be real, that will put all of the first responders in Oakland County through that training on a regular basis. We hope this never happens again, but that’s not a strategy, preparation is.
On another front, we’ve added some resources that will be helping to coordinate all school resources officers in the county that will help run down threats against any school int he county, and a computer crime division that will help focus on online threats.
