"Guardian" Stops Armed Intruder At Florida School

An armed staffer at a Florida high school ended up holding an intruder for police on Thursday after the suspect hopped a fence and entered the Leesburg High School campus.

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According to Fox 35 in Orlando, Florida, the would-be intruder was found with both drugs and ammunition on him, as well as a flare gun with a shotgun shell inside.

According to the arrest affidavit, the man — identified as 30-year-old Jabari Scott — had a flare gun in his right waistband but it contained a 410 shotgun shell in the barrel, “ready to fire.” An additional shotgun shell, nine rounds of .380 ammunition, one 9mm round, one .223 round, and one 12 gauge shotgun slug shell were also in the man’s possession.

In addition, police said that Scott had a white, powdery substance on him too, which tested positive for cocaine. It was said to be in five, small Ziploc-style bags. He also had an unidentified brown powder substance on him, which did not test positive for heroin or meth.

The Leesburg Police Department said that Scott claimed that the items listed above were actually his little brother’s and that he did not want him to get caught with them.

I don’t know if Scott’s little brother has a criminal record, but Jabari Scott has multiple felonies to his name, according to police, and this bust is likely going to be bad news for him. Possession of a single round of ammunition by a convicted felon can be punished by up to a decade behind bars in a federal prison, though it’s unknown at this point whether the U.S. Attorney will take an interest in this case.

Classes are taking place at Leesburg High at the moment. In fact, the school year kicked off this week, so there were students on campus when the armed intruder appeared. The Guardian program worked exactly as it’s supposed to; the armed school staffer identified and stopped the threat before any students could possibly be harmed. In this case, no trigger was pulled and Mr. Scott went off to the local jail instead of the local hospital, and classes went on as normally as they can thanks to the COVID-19 virus.

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Florida’s Guardian program was put in place after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. The program is officially called the Coach Aaron Feis Schoo Guardian Program, after the MSD teacher who lost his life while trying to protect students from their assailant. Lake County is one of 43 counties in Florida that have put the Guardian program in place, and it looks like it’s already paying off for students, parents, and educators alike.

By the way, the activists at Everytown and Moms Demand Action despise the Guardian program because “gUnZ aRe BaD.” I doubt this story will change any minds over at Gun Control, Inc. but I bet you won’t find too many critics of the program wandering the halls of Leesburg High tomorrow. When it comes to protecting the lives of students, an armed response is a very good thing.

 

 

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