Watch: Reporter Reunites With Son in Emotional Moment Live on Air After Shooting Occurs at His School

Fox News viewers were treated to a unique and emotional moment today when reporter Alicia Acuna, covering today’s shooting at Denver’s East High School live, was interrupted by the arrival of her son, who is a student there. “Excuse me, my son just came up, and I had not seen,” Acuna told anchors John Roberts and Sandra Smith in the middle of a report outside the school.

“I’m sorry, I had not seen my kid,” an emotional Acuna reiterated as they hugged. “I’m so sorry, there is no way you would have let your kid walk by.” The anchors were entirely supportive of Acuna, who resumed work promptly, suggesting she take some time with her son or even have him rejoin her before the camera.

Acuna continued to speak on the day’s shooting and the events preceding it, and she spoke passionately. “This is a really weird thing, toggling between reporting and being a parent . . . but I’m speaking as a parent,” Acuna said.

Watch:

It seems the suspect, 17-year-old Austin Lyle, was on a special “school safety agreement,” or plan, under which he had to be patted down and searched for weapons as he entered the school. It appears that it was at this time today when he drew a gun and shot the two deans charged with the unenviable task, Jerald Mason and Eric Sinclair, who were rushed to a nearby hospital. “He is described as a [b]lack male standing 5 feet, 5 inches and weighing 150 pounds,” and wearing a green hoodie. Acuna said that many parents did not know about such “safety plans,” the reason being to protect the privacy of students on such plans.

Focus quickly shifted to Denver Public Schools’ June 2020 decision to end its relationship with the Denver Police Department (DPD) and remove all 17 (or 18) School Resource Officers. The decision was made without regard for parent opinion and was passed unanimously by the district’s board.

Then-DPS superintendent Susana Cordova celebrated the removal of all SRO’s, issuing this statement: “Our students need to trust the adults who are on our campuses with them. I appreciate the board’s forcefulness and tenacity in bringing this issue forward.”

“We are responsible for the lives of our students,” said Jennifer Bacon, Vice President of the DPS school board, unironically. “It is not a small thing to be ticketed or arrested when you are a child . . . [we did this] to alleviate the trauma and triggering presence of law enforcement to many people in our community,” Bacon continued. “A majority of the students who have been ticketed, or arrested, are students of color. And, between the ages of just 10 and 15 years old.” She and many others cited the “school to prison pipeline” as a reason to do away with SRO’s.

Others proponents discussing the “school to prison pipeline” cited data indicating that those arrested by SRO’s at younger ages for more minor offenses were more likely to end up in prison later – and evidently assumed a tacit causal link. The presumption appears to have been that removing the SRO’s would, therefore, remove the subsequent imprisonments. If suspect Austin Lyle – who is at large as of this writing – is found and arrested, the theory did not pan out in his case. The truism that “correlation does not imply causation” is, perhaps, not taught in Denver Public Schools.

Not everyone agreed with the decision to at the time. Civil Rights activist and black man Alvertis Simmons told Denver 7, “A counselor’s not gonna help the kid if somebody’s in the school with a gun.”

16-year-old soccer player Luis Garcia was killed at East High just last month. Some of his teammates, Acuna said, “went to the Denver City Council and asked them to please put SRO’s back in their schools. And there was a member of the Denver Public Schools school board, Tay Anderson, who told . . . channel 7 . . . that he wasn’t even going to engage in the conversation.” Garcia’s funeral was Saturday.

Elected in 2019 at the age of 21, Anderson was one of the youngest elected officials in Colorado history and a leader of the effort to remove SRO’s. He is said to have been a leader of the city’s protests in the summer of 2020 and made headlines later when he was named in a string of sexual assault accusations by various members of Denver’s BLM chapter (5280), which later said that Anderson “will not be welcome to share space with BLM5280 physically or on any of our platforms.” Anderson, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, also has drawn local criticism for his mistreatment of police and concurrent requests for favors from police.

Current superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero announced today that two armed officers will now be in the school until the end of the school year. “It’s clear now that we need to do even more interdiction with our police officers inside the buildings in these types of situations.”

Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock, who spoke also about easy access to guns, said today in a statement: “It’s also time to return School Resource Officers in schools. Removing them was a mistake and we must move quickly to correct it.” Hancock is black and a Democrat.

Acuna, for her part, still can hug her son.

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