"Incredibly shocked": City councilor calls for security sweeps after man found in Dorchester classroom
BOSTON - Parents are demanding answers after a teacher at the Murphy K-8 school in Dorchester encountered a man, described as homeless, in a closet in her classroom Tuesday morning before the start of school.
Parent Nicola Dillon says families need to feel safe. "It should just be a common right that our kids go into a building and we as parents feel our kids are safe in there," Dillon said. "I don't feel kids are safe right now."
According to a Boston police report, the man with no shoes or socks, ran out a rear door when the teacher entered around 7:30 a.m. calling out to a colleague. The report says the man ran out a door that may have been left ajar. In fact, a WBZ-TV camera caught two other individuals, not school personnel, wandering around the same rear entrance early Wednesday morning.
Boston City Councilor Julia Mejia, who chairs the education committee, says the incident has exposed a weakness in the safety system. She's calling for a safety infrastructure across the system she says currently doesn't exist, which is to do morning and night security sweeps. "I am incredibly shocked that we don't have a protocol now around how we maintain safety in our schools that is low cost, taking an additional fifteen or twenty minutes to do so," said Mejia.
In a letter to parents Principal Courtney Sheppeck wrote, "No students came into contact with this individual and no students or staff were in any danger due to this finding."
But parent Katie Portanova says anything could have happened. "Did we learn nothing from Texas," she said. "Why were doors left unlocked, why were people able to get into the school. They found beer bottles in the school before."
Councilor Mejia says the lack of communication around the incident is equally troubling and a missed opportunity to give all parents peace of mind. "Those folks should have created an opportunity for us to be briefed on what happened and what we're going to do about it," Mejia said.
City Councilor Erin Murphy says school assessments are currently being done under Mayor Wu's Green New Deal, and believes security needs to be included. "Making sure these older buildings have doors that lock automatically behind them, and don't have access from outside.," Murphy said. "It's important to make sure people aren't entering the building."