ST. LOUIS — It’s been one year since Manfret McGhee hunkered down in a bathroom after he came face-to-face with a former student in a hallway at the high school where he works and dodged bullets.
That day, his own 16-year-old son Anthony, was among the seven teens who were injured, surviving a gunshot wound to the back of one of his legs. One of his close coworkers, teacher Jean Kuzcka, and 15-year-old student Alexzandria Bell were killed.
Police killed the shooter, 19-year-old Orlando Harris, whom McGhee once knew as a student there.
“I think for people sitting on the outside looking in, they may look at it as a year later,” said McGhee, the dean of students at Central Visual Performing Arts High School. “But I look at it as something that happened a year ago that I've been dealing with every day since it happened.”
And, in some ways, it’s still mysterious.
The I-Team has filed multiple records requests for surveillance and body camera video from the day of the shooting as well as asked for an interview with St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy. All of those requests have been denied.
Sgt. Charles Wall said that's because the police investigation is still not complete.
“It’s a very, very large investigation,” Wall said. “We want to make sure we document everything.”
This means that until that final report is complete, the department won’t present much more detail about that day to the public.
“It's my understanding that the report at this point may be hundreds of pages long,” Wall said. “I believe that the report, that the investigation is reaching the finalized stages.”
Wall said part of the delay is because there were hundreds of students, staff and police officers from multiple agencies involved.
The I-Team also requested information from the St. Louis Public School District about security upgrades since the shooting. The district’s security budget is now $10.5 million. That’s up from $8 million before the shooting.
The additional $2.5 million mostly paid for additional video surveillance and intrusion alarms, according to district spokesperson George Sells.
The district had seven security guards at the two high schools located on the CVPA campus and 101 guards district-wide. The district hired an additional 30 security officers following the shooting, but it was part of the district's normal hiring process, Sells said. Door locks, alarms, specialty doors and windows have also been added to the building.
The district also spent money changing the way the CVPA building looked inside, so it wouldn’t look the same way it did when students and staff returned there about three months after the shooting.
McGhee said those changes helped him and his son the day they walked back into the building.
Meanwhile, Wall said the police department hopes to have its report and investigation into the school shooting finalized in the coming weeks.
McGhee said he already has the answers he needs.
“I was there,” he said. “I know what happened.
“I guess when the when the time comes, all that information will come out. What (the police) did that day and the short amount of time that they arrived on the scene to neutralize that situation, I'm grateful for them.”
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