RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Some Richmond Public Schools officials are renewing calls for more oversight after a third-party investigation into the deadly shooting at Huguenot High School’s graduation ceremony revealed major inconsistencies from the internal investigation completed by the school district.
Richmond School Board member Kenya Gibson said she now plans to re-introduce her push to hire a senior safety auditor to “focus on identifying issues related to school safety.” Gibson originally presented the idea in February of 2023 and presented the motion again shortly after the shooting.
“I have put a solution on the table,” Gibson said at a board meeting in July. “We, as a board, must make sure those protocols are followed. It is our responsibility to make sure the protocols are followed.”
The motion was seconded by board member Johnathan Young, but there was no further movement on the idea. At meeting on Monday, Jan. 22, the board voted to refer the discussion to the board’s Audit Committee.
The renewed push comes as school officials question the discrepancies between the internal and external investigations as it related to security at the Altria Theater and the attendance of Shawn Jackson, a Huguenot senior who was killed in the shooting, at the graduation ceremony.
According to the school district’s internal investigation, “all audience members went through metal detectors [magnetometers] at the main entrance to the Altria Theater. Students, Board Members, and [school district] senior staff came through the side entrance.”
However, the third-party investigation revealed that staff members’ reports about the graduates’ entrance conflicted from one another.
The report stated that one staff member said they saw magnetometers, while another said they did not. The one who saw magnetometers reported leaving and re-entering the building multiple times and not always being screened.
School Board member Stephanie Rizzi said she did not see any security staff at the graduate entrance, nor a magnetometer. School Board member Shonda Harris-Muhammed also said she did not see a magnetometer.
Harris-Muhammed said she did not see staff upon her first entry, but saw one employee upon re-entering closer to the ceremony’s start. Additionally, both Rizzi and Harris-Muhammad said they witnessed students entering without being screened.
8News also uncovered discrepancies about Jackson’s authorization to attend graduation due to his participation in the Homebound program. In November, Superintendent Jason Kamras wrote a memo Sands Anderson, the law firm who conducted the external investigation.
In the memo, Kamras said that the firm finding “no evidence that Ms. Harris, the school counselor working with Shawn Jackson, was acting as the principal’s designee in making the decision about whether Shawn should participate in the graduation ceremony,” contradicted what the school district had found in its own investigation.
“Our internal conclusion that she was, in fact, serving in this capacity was based on conversations that Mr. Jefferson, Chief Academic Officer for Secondary Education, had with then-Principal Gilstrap, who indicated that he had delegated this responsibility to his counselors,” Kamras said in the memo. “Unfortunately, we are not able to re-verify this, as Mr. Gilstrap has declined to be interviewed.”
This is a developing story. Stay with 8News for updates.
