MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — Montgomery County Public Schools have released another after action report about the response to the shooting at Colonel Zadok Magruder High School. The shooting left a 15-year-old boy seriously injured in a school bathroom.
DeAndre Thomas was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition after he was shot while at school on January 21, 2022 The high school was on lockdown for several hours as school leaders and police investigated the situation.
Steven Alston Jr., 17, was taken into police custody and charged as an adult with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony/violent crime, possession of a dangerous weapon on school property and possession of a firearm by a minor.
Thomas is now back at Magruder High School, excelling at art and English. It took 10 surgeries to get there, and his mother, Karen Thomas said her insurance has not covered all of those costs. So far, she's been billed for more than $313,000. The Thomas family is suing Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) for alleged negligence, saying the school district’s removal of school resource police officers before the shooting was partially to blame.
MCPS released its initial "after-action" report months after the shooting. Click here to read that full report. Now, more than a year after the shooting, MCPS has released a 12-page addendum to the original report.
The new report includes information from over 40 interviews that included school staff, central office staff, parents, students, public safety responders and officials, and meetings with Magruder High School staff. Officials 911 calls and school security footage, as well as conducted on-site walk-throughs of the school.
Among the lessons learned put forward in this addendum, the school admits that, "MCPS and MCP never established a true Unified Command structure. The lack of a Unified Command structure by MCPS and between MCPS and MCP led to confusion relating to roles, responsibilities, and decision-making, as well as delays in communication and parent-child reunification."
As a result, moving forward, MCPS has developed an Incident Command Structure that delineates the roles and responsibilities of central office and school-based staff, which minimizes the number of staff members sent to the scene of a serious incident. This structure establishes clear procedures for establishing a Unified Command.
Additional confusion arose when it came to communication between staff and parents on the day of the shooting.
"The lack of communication caused misinformation and confusion for parents and students about the status and specifics of the incident as well as what they should expect with the [parent child reunification] process," the report says.
Moving forward, MCPS said it will not hold press conferences during a serious incident until the reunification process is complete.
"MCPS recognizes that there were elements of the response that day that did not go well, and adjustments and upgrades have been made to the incident command and serious incident structures as a result," the report says.