Police want rifles stored in schools

Coeur d’Alene police have asked school officials to allow officers to bring their patrol rifles into city schools so that officers will be more capable of protecting students.

Capt. Ron Clark, supervisor of the school resource officers, said they need more firepower because school shootings typically involve heavily armed attackers.

He said the rifles would be locked in gun safes in the schools and the officers would be the only ones with access to them.

“If it’s out in their vehicle in the parking lot, that wouldn’t be a situation where they’d be able to get to that rifle,” Clark said.

The rifles can be used to shoot assailants up to about 1,200 feet, Clark said, while the handguns officers carry have an effective range of only about 75 feet.

He noted the length of the hallways in schools can be nearly 200 feet.

Clark cited a January incident where a person parked about 500 feet away from Lake City High School with a high-powered rifle in the vehicle.

“Luckily, we were able to take him down without any incident, but that just showed the need, that there was a lot of feet in distance that we have to cover,” Clark said.

In that incident, a former student was arrested after police said his mother called them to say her son had been behaving erratically and might have weapons.

Clark said officers would carry the rifles into the school in duffel bags in an unloaded and “broke-down configuration.”