Students decry police officers on campus following Ingraham shooting

The fatal shooting of a student at Ingraham High School Tuesday was the focus at the Seattle Public School Board’s regular meeting Wednesday night, with student representatives speaking out against the shooting and the failures of the district to stop the tragedy.

District Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones says a plan has been implemented to address the situation.

“Seattle Public Schools will work to complete a thorough assessment of what additional safety measures must be implemented to allow students to fully focus on their studies while at school as opposed to their safety,” Jones said. “I am going to launch a safety and security audit to diagnose what are our opportunities and threats, we will have a community action team to make immediate determinations of what we can do right now, and thirdly we will launch a child wellbeing council and that will be lead by nurses, pediatricians, psychologists, and others with expertise in being able to recognize and reconcile mental health in a social and emotional manner.”

Teen suspects make first court appearances following Ingraham HS shooting

The community action team will be put together by city officials, Mayor Bruce Harrell, Police Chief Adrian Diaz, and others to make immediate determinations of what can be done right now to make Seattle Public Schools safe

The SPS Board had two student board directors at the meeting, Luna Crone-Baron, a junior at The Center School, and Nassira Hassan, a senior at Chief Sealth International High School, who both addressed the board and the audience about their reactions and anger at the shooting.

“I accepted this position to be a student’s voice,” said Hassan. “But, I am at a loss for words. I just can’t imagine that this happened in the district that I’m supposed to be a part of the leader of. I feel as if I failed. But I understand that I’m also a kid who should not be worried about my safety at school. We as a nation, as a state, as a city, and as a community and district, as SPS, have failed. We have failed to reassure students’ safety and to the family of that child, I am so sorry.”

Crone-Baron explained to the board her frustration over the response to the circumstances surrounding Tuesday’s shooting.

“The response I’ve seen is, well, this is an isolated incident,” she said. “So what? There has been a child killed at school.”

Crone-Baron also felt a sense of responsibility to her fellow students, stating, “this kid, someone’s baby, is still dead. And that’s on all of us. That’s on the entire district, and that’s on the way that we as a community have clearly failed our children.”

The two student representatives asked for any solution to not include armed police officers in the school buildings, saying more police would lead to more violence.

“What I know is that the way we’re not going to be kept safe is with more police presence in schools. As we’ve seen, more police presence in schools only leads to more violence in schools,” Crone-Baron said. “We do not need more violent police officers violently bullying and harassing students in school. I will never support any policing in schools. Schools should be a place that is automatically safe, where kids are nurtured and loved, and not killed.”

Prosecutors said they intended to charge two teenagers with a slew of felony charges in relation to Tuesday’s deadly shooting at Ingraham High School.

Teen suspects make first court appearances following Ingraham HS shooting

Only one of the two teenage suspects actually appeared before a judge. During a court hearing, prosecutors said the accused 14-year-old shooter had waived his court appearance, according to KIRO 7 TV.

According to prosecutors, the 14-year-old alleged gunman planned the shooting. They said they planned on eventually charging the boy with premeditated first-degree murder.

KIRO 7 and Lisa Brooks contributed to this report.