Cape Girardeau school district to evaluate response, security after shooting during graduation

Cape Girardeau Public Schools officials are assessing the security and reviewing their response following a shooting at Cape Central High School’s graduation ceremony Sunday, May 19, that sent hundreds into a frenzy.

A single gunshot echoed through the Show Me Center’s auditorium from the upper concourse near a concession stand as a student was addressing the crowd. Two victims were injured and taken to the hospital, and the alleged perpetrator, identified Monday, May 20, as 20-year-old Kris E. Owens, was apprehended and arrested on multiple felony charges.

During a news conference Monday afternoon, Cape Girardeau Public Schools officials praised school resource officers for their response.

"I want to commend our school resource officers for the response yesterday. They immediately jumped into action and leaned on their training to help keep everyone safe," district superintendent Howard Benyon said. The resource officers, according to documents, ran to the area where the shot was heard, then found two subjects wrestling in a stairwell. They apprehended both subjects.

According to assistant superintendent of support services Josh Crowell, security at the event was a "combined effort." The district was responsible for security at the event.

"We had our school resource officers, five of them," Crowell said. "We also had additional staff from the high school that were working there as well, and a few of our (staff members from) other buildings as well as the staff from the Show Me Center."

Attendees noted there were no metal detectors in place at the Show Me Center’s entrances as there often are for concerts and other events. While the district hasn’t decided when graduation ceremonies will be held again, Crowell said there will be "various changes" made.

"As with any situation, we re-evaluate and evaluate where we were at, what took place and then we will look at new processes, procedures, protocols, and implement those accordingly," Crowell said. "I cannot tell you exactly what that will look like yet, but there will be various changes that I would also say will spread all over our campuses and all over our buildings, particularly for summer school and then leading into the start of next school year and all events going forward."

At a Cape Girardeau City Council meeting Monday night, Mayor Stacy Kinder, who attended the graduation ceremony Sunday, said short- and long-term action needs to be taken.

“There was a lot of immediate and near-future decisions needing to be made by various organizations that are involved in any kind of large-scale gathering that we see most notably our school district, SEMO and even the city,” Kinder said. “These organizations are currently even today beginning conversations or continuing conversations about decisions that may need to be made rather immediately or in the near future regarding safety.”

Some have been critical of school district superintendent Howard Benyon’s response at the graduation. In a video posted to Facebook, Benyon can be heard telling attendees, "Please calm down. We’ll find out if that was just the balloons. Everyone, please calm down." However, Benyon said he was being instructed to keep everyone inside the arena portion of the Show Me Center by school resource officers who are commissioned by and were in direct contact with the Cape Girardeau Police Department at the time.

"The incident was happening at that point, and if they were going to be exiting the building, they could be caught up in that," Benyon said. "That’s the reason why we wanted them to stay within the Show Me Center. At that point, as soon as I got confirmation to release them out the north side and then release them out the south side, we did. That’s one of those communications where I know people feel was not on the same pace as they think their mind was going, but, in our minds, we had to wait for the safety of all of the patrons in the Show Me Center and we couldn’t do that until we got the OK to do that from the police department."

Crowell said the district still goes through ALICE (alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate) active shooter training, which emphasizes a "speedy response" and recommends immediately evacuating if it’s safe to do so.

"We utilize ALICE and we’ve utilized that system for many, many years," Crowell said. "We go through multiple, multiple trainings every year with that, and we’re going to continue to do so. ... We look at, were there gaps, were there holes, what did we do good, what is something that we could have done better and what did we miss? Then, we take all that information and work to improve ourselves constantly, because this is not a type of subject matter that you ever want to stay static with your training, with your understanding and with your research of it. You constantly have to have this at the forefront of your thoughts."

Crowell also praised the response from community members, staff and students in attendance who stepped up during the "tragic event."

"We have had a lot of stories told to us of community members, staff members and our own students that really rose to the occasion once this tragic event happened to actually make it a success, in one sense, (by getting) that many people out of the building and have the kids reunited with their parents and family members reunited with family members," Crowell said.

At a regularly scheduled meeting Monday night, Cape Girardeau Public Schools Board of Education president Jared Ritter said, "I know that I’m not alone when I say that I’m angry that adults would ruin such a special occasion for our school community. Our students, our families, our staff and entire school community deserve better. But when tragedy occurs, we also get a glimpse of who we are as a community. What I saw yesterday was our school administrators, our SROs staff members, students and audience members, jumping into action and working together to help keep each other safe. That is who we are as a school community. We take care of each other."

At the school board meeting, Benyon said, "I want everyone to know that we have taken this situation very seriously and we’re putting protocols in place, but it’s not us. It’s not us that needs to make a difference; it’s everyone sitting out here. This is a community issue. This is not a school district issue; this is a community issue that came to our school. I encourage all of you to step up when someone calls on you to speak up about what’s going on in our community, because we have to have a safe community moving forward."

High school students who still need to complete their CAP exams will be made exempt and will carry their grades as of Friday, May 17, as their final grade in each class.

Benyon said both the middle school and high school will be open from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, so students may visit with their teachers and receive counseling services, if they so choose, from Community Counseling Center counselors.

School was canceled Monday for the entire district, and the administration decided to do so again Tuesday. Each school in the district will have its final day of the academic year Wednesday, May 22, which will be a half-day.

"We feel like there has to be some type of closure for our students and our teachers," Benyon said. "We had discussions with our teachers today and they feel like they need to have some type of closure."

As for the longterm and broader picture of gun violence, Mayor Kinder said “There are issues and needed changes in our community that have to be addressed. There are multiple ideas and concepts being developed that have been in the process of being developed by various organizations on this whole topic of gun violence of public safety. Those are extremely complex. And so addressing them is not going to be easy. It’s not going to be quick. Addressing them, though, will require some very good community engagement.”

Reporter Nathan Gladden contributed to this report.