MIAMI-DADE, Fla. – Are random metal detector searches really being done in the Miami-Dade Schools?
Local 10 News has been trying to get that question answered since a stabbing at Killian High School on March 31.
After the stabbing, Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said, "We have a random weapons search program conducted with metal detectors by our police officers across the district. We have actually expanded it going into this year."
But students, parents and a principal claimed the school district was touting a program they had never seen happen.
Local 10 placed a public-records request for the reports generated when a search is conducted.
"Releasing the number of searches and information at Killian or any other school would compromise the program and school safety overall," said Lt. Raul Corra, of the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department.
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Local 10 went to six different high schools in Miami-Dade, interviewing 20 different students at random.
Not one had ever been searched with a portable metal detector, knew of anyone who had been or even heard of it happening in their school.
It wasn't until Friday, when district officials realized Local 10 was going to air those student interviews, that they scrambled to get us the numbers.
The district claims 346 metal detector searches have been conducted this school year at 110 schools and 7,050 students searched.
The district has 392 schools and 345,000 students.
A source said the point of the program is not only to find weapons, but to deter students from bringing them into the school in the first place.
If most don't know the program exists, how can it be a deterrent?
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