A contracted security guard at an elementary school has been fired after leaving a loaded gun inside a faculty restroom.
Allen ISD sent an email informing parents that a security guard from L&P Global Security Company, who had been working at Story Elementary School, was fired on November 7, according to Fox 4 KDFW.
In a letter to parents, the school’s principal detailed that a teacher found the firearm less than a minute after the security guard left the bathroom.
Charles Hollis of L&P Global Security told Fox 4 that the incident was a “costly mistake” and that there was no ill intent, clarifying that the company’s policy dictates that a firearm must not be removed from its holster except in the case of an imminent threat.
“If there wasn’t a threat present that warranted the gun to be removed from the holster, then I bring them in and they’re dismissed, that’s just the policy we have,” said Hollis, per Fox 4.
Despite the short duration between the guard leaving the gun and the gun being retrieved safely, parents expressed concern that a loaded weapon was left unattended.
“I think it gave me a sense of relief that a student didn’t grab it or didn’t have access to it. Still, it was concerning to me that there was a gun unattended for that amount of time,” said a concerned parent whose daughter attends the school, per Fox 4.
Hollis said he understands the parents’ response to the incident and wants to assure them that it was an isolated event.
However, this is not the only recent instance of an alleged loaded firearm being discovered in a precarious position on school property. Keller police officers arrested 18-year-old Armando Jozel Lopez-Nevarez after discovering an alleged gun and a controlled substance on his person during a security screening, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Concerns about school security ratcheted up following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde ISD last year. Since then, there have been at least three other gun-related incidents in North Texas, in addition to the one in Keller.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, there was a school shooting at a North Dallas campus earlier in the year, and last October, an elementary school student discharged a gun at their school.
