Police talk to second student after Socastee High shooting

The principal of Socastee High School confirmed Wednesday that a second student was being questioned in a shooting and bomb scare Tuesday at the school. Paul Browning said police asked the second student about the event, which included pipe bombs that were discovered and disarmed, and the student was released to his parents.

Metal detector checks helped bring a sense of security to the school Wednesday in the wake of this week's shooting, but some bigger questions on school safety linger, according to students and school officials.

Among concerns about preventing a future incident is whether or how a student's use of social networking websites should be dealt with, according to Browning. Threatening messages had been posted on the website Twitter as early as Aug. 23 from an account that may be linked to the shooting, he said.

The school plans to debrief on the incident and discuss what policy changes should be made sometime next week, Browning said.

On Wednesday morning, lines for the metal detectors and bag searches extended out the school door, but several students said they thought the checks were worthwhile to keep the school safe.

Teal Britton, Horry County Schools spokeswoman, said there wasn't a noticeable decrease in attendance Wednesday at Socastee High, which has about 1,400 students. Two entrances were open to students who passed through metal detectors, and all students and their bags were searched. The start of school was delayed by an hour because of the searches.

All, with the exception of a few late arrivals, had made it through the metal detectors by 9:30 a.m.

"They were remarkably orderly this morning having to go through the search procedures," Britton said. "There are things students can do to help with that, and that is to limit what they bring to school."

A day earlier, at around 2 p.m., a freshman at Socastee High shot a gun he had brought to school, striking a wall. The resulting shrapnel injured the school's resource officer - a police officer who works with the school - before the officer, Erik Karney, restrained him. Bomb squads later removed several pipe bombs from the building.

The Sun News is not identifying the student because he is a juvenile. The student is in the custody of the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia.

Apart from any criminal sentencing in court, the student's case will be heard by student affairs officials in the school district office, Browning said. The hearing could result in one of four different outcomes: The student could be found innocent; he could be found guilty and be put on probation within the school; he could be transferred to the alternative school, Horry County Education Center; or he could be expelled from the district.

To prevent future violent incidents from happening, Britton and Browning described using policies similar to what has been used in the past to prevent violence.

Students at Socastee will be searched the rest of this week, but, after that, the school's administrators will return to their previous policy of using random searches with the detectors, Britton said. Wednesday was the first time this school year that metal detectors were used at the school, Browning said.

Metal detectors should have been in full use prior to the shooting, freshman Ivana Godin said while standing in line to be checked.

An 18-year-old St. James High School student was arrested Sept. 8 and charged with disrupting schools after he posted a threat on Facebook. That school instituted metal detector checks in the days following the incident.

That incident should also have led to increased security at Socastee High, Godin said.

"After the Facebook thing, they should have had the metal detectors up even if they didn't find anything," she said.

Britton said staffing limits the use of metal detectors, but staff and students can alert authorities to such instances if they know a student is planning something. She said at least four adults, including male and females, are needed to staff a metal detector, she said.

"[The detectors] are valuable, or we wouldn't have bought them. But they're not the only element of a school's overall day-to-day safety protocol," Britton said. "The most important aspect of a safety plan has nothing to do with equipment, and it has everything to do with people."

Monitoring student use of social networking sites presents a more difficult prospect.

Browning said it's difficult to monitor social networking sites because a student's use of a site is considered a personal matter, unless a student directly references the school or makes a threat. The school has taken disciplinary action in the past when a student posted inappropriate comments about a faculty member on the website Facebook, Browning said.

"You've got the capability to do stuff we never even thought about," Browning said of using social networks for "cyber bullying."

He said someone had posted to Twitter as early as Aug. 23, the first day of the school year, saying they had "a plan." The most recent tweet, posted at 7:46 a.m. on Tuesday, reads: "Waiting for my ride. About to head to school. Not much longer."

Other posts referenced having pipe bombs and a shotgun, and said the person was considering suicide.

Students play the most important role in preventing violence at school, Britton said.

"The most important thing when kids know or suspect is that they have the courage to tell an adult," she said. "We're so fortunate that the SRO was there, and the SRO was the first point of contact, because the SRO is trained to know what to do. His actions contained the situation, and no students got hurt."

The school's culture plays a large role in preventing violence, Browning said. Administrators encourage students to view the school as a family and a place where they shouldn't feel intimidated, he said. The school also has a peer mediation program, he said.

That's worked so far, as there have been no other knife or gun incidents in his 13 years at the school, Browning said. The school will continue to discuss what else can be done to prevent violence, he said.

"We feel we're doing more than a lot of people, but that doesn't mean it's enough ... it's never enough," Browning said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.