District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway and Interim Crossville Police Chief Chris Kendrick addressed the Cumberland County Board of Education last night about school safety. They also spoke of the recent shooting at the school bus garage.

The event left Joy Nostrom and Mark Gunter deceased. The alleged shooter, 74-year-old Warren Nostrom, was treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound then later arrested on two counts of first-degree murder.

School board member Robbie Safdie asked Dunaway and Kendrick how they rated the school systems response after the shooting took place.

While details of the shooting could not be discusses, Dunaway said the school system did an outstanding job of how it was handled in the aftermath.

“However, there are always things that can be evaluated in the face of tragedy,” said Dunaway.

The school system was notified of the shooting at 2:35 p.m. that day. The school bus garage was locked down leaving several buses and drivers unable to go on their routes. A few buses that left prior to the shooting doubled up their duties and got all the students home by 5:20 p.m., just an hour later that the usual last drop off.

When asked why no alert went out to parents, Kendrick said two reasons went to that decision. One, the shooting was over in a couple of minutes and there was no more threat to the school system. Second, an alert would have caused a panic as the event was already over by the very short time an alert could be sent out. While the shooting took place at the bus garage on Genesis Road, there was no threats to students including at nearby Stone Memorial High School and Stone Elementary School.

Kendrick said he has suggestions to make safety better at school facilities but would not speak of them in an open public setting. A private work session will be held soon with the school board, Dunaway and Kendrick to go over those ideas. The closed meeting is allowed under state law if the school board is discussing security procedures of the school system.