Last year, as students and staff at Harriet Tubman Village Charter School went about their regular school day, sounds of screaming and gunshots began to play off staff members’ walkie-talkies.
Instantly, panic ensued.
Students and staff members began to cry hysterically, call their loved ones to say their goodbyes and fear for their lives.
But those sounds of screaming and gunshots weren’t real. It turns out, an employee of the school played those sounds over the school’s walkie-talkie system as part of an active shooter drill. And, as our Jakob McWhinney reports, it didn’t go over very well.
The event caused lasting damage to many students and staff members who had to seek counseling and therapy to move on from the trauma it caused, staff members said. And it also brought up concerns about the right, and wrong, ways to conduct active shooter drills.
How schools go about conducting active shooter drills varies widely across the state because there’s no official state guidance on how schools should prepare for the possibility of an active shooter.
Many experts, organizations and state lawmakers are divided on how active shooter drills should be conducted and whether there should even be active shooter drills at all.
Environment Report: San Diego Is Embracing the Green Bins
Just last summer, San Diegans were adjusting to a new chore: separating food scraps from the trash and into a shiny new green waste bin.Â
It seemed to be off to a rocky start, San Diegans were struggling with the new stink, flies and new chore, as our MacKenzie Elmer reported. But it appears that food waste is making its way to the green bins after all.Â
According to city data, the amount of organic waste the city collected increased by 106 percent in just two fiscal years (the city collects waste data by fiscal year).
Elmer digs into the data and what this means for the city’s zero waste goals in the latest Environment Report.
Advocates Worry Parking Laws Hurt Seniors, Low-Income People Most
A few months ago, 92-year-old Erma Currier’s beloved 2011 Buick was towed by the city of Chula Vista because it was parked in one spot for more than three days, according to a report by KPBS. That’s illegal in many cities.
To get it back, Currier had to pay the towing company $1,000 using her credit card. Months later, she still hasn’t paid it off and is now considering bankruptcy.
Currier’s experience is, unfortunately, very common, especially among seniors, low-income people, Black and Latino communities and homeless people who live in their vehicles.
Advocacy groups have been trying for years to get cities throughout the county to change their towing practices to stop towing people for unpaid parking tickets, having an expired registration or being parked in one place for more than 72 hours.
They say, for many people, the cost of getting their cars back could set them back for months or years. And some people won’t ever be able to get their cars back.
Related: Our Lisa Halverstadt previously wrote about a family who lost their jobs at the start of Covid. They bought an RV to buy themselves some time, but it was towed for unpaid parking tickets, and the family became homeless. Read that story here.
In Other News
- The number of migrants being released throughout San Diego County by Border Patrol agents has significantly decreased since executive orders signed by President Joe Biden a couple months ago significantly limited the amount of asylum seekers that could be processed at the border. (KPBS)
- Environmental groups want to expand one of San Diego’s marine protected areas off Point Loma from less than half a square mile to more than 16 in an effort to protect kelp forests. But that would also mean squeezing out local fishermen. (Union-Tribune)
- UC San Diego admitted roughly 4,000 more students for the fall semester than it did a year ago, hitting a record total of 48,282 admissions offered. The campus is already struggling with overcrowding and a severe shortage of student housing. (Union-Tribune)
- The San Diego County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote soon on whether to endorse the nation’s first statewide reparations package, a handful of proposed bills that aim to compensate the descendants of enslaved Black people. Last week, the City Council unanimously voted to back the package. (Union-Tribune)
The Morning Report was written by Tigist Layne and Andrea Lopez-Villafaña. It was edited by Andrea Lopez-Villafaña.