A night of high school basketball was interrupted when a 23-year old man was stabbed to death at a Trenton Central High School and Notre Dame High School game on February 16th.
The stabbing occurred at around 8:30 pm at the CURE Arena after the game. Khalil Glanton, 23, was found unresponsive on the ground with multiple stab wounds. He was taken to Capital Health Regional Medical Center and was pronounced dead shortly after.
Two men, Kareem Finney, 25, and Kahli Finney, 20, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder and third degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
In light of the recent passing of the former Trenton High student, the conversation about security and safety within schools has intensified. With school shootings being an active threat throughout schools in the country, Governor Phil Murphy and other lawmakers distributed over $70 million to school panic response projects. This money came from a state bond issue voted on in 2018, according to an article published by njspotlightnews.org.
Roughly $65 million in total grants to NJ schools was approved by Murphy in 2021, alongside another $5 million was approved in 2022.
Despite the legislative act indicating that 500 schools in NJ had received that funding, it is unclear if any of the schools were able to successfully install alert-panic systems. There is also a surplus of $4 million that has not been spent.
The topic of safety on the MCCC campuses is fairly recent, as there had recently been installations of Teacher-Lock brand door sealing barricades to classrooms, according to an article in the College VOICE. The locks are designed to be sealed from the inside, and give more time for first responders to get to Mercer in case of an emergency, such as an active shooter.
These locks were installed after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
At Mercer, there have been “no record of violent attacks”, says Bryon Marshall, the Director of College Safety, Security & Facilities at MCCC. Marshall also emphasizes that security at Mercer doesn’t take these potential attacks lightly.
“Is any of this stuff possible? Yes. We always prepare for the worst.” Marshall said. “We do lots of intel to avoid these things. We pay attention to the trends.”
John Simone, the Athletic Director at MCCC, says that there has always been a worry of violent attacks happening at Mercer sports games.
In terms of security measures at games, Simone says that they do not perform bag checks, and “hope that we won’t have to.” The security staff at Mercer are always on call during games, but the main source of security consists of the athletic department staff, including Simone.
Hamilton and West Windsor police officers are present at highly populated games, and come in sets of two. Simone says that four police officers are present when the athletics department predicts a large turn out.
“What we try to do is minimize risk, including more security to deter attackers,” Simone says.
Based on a study done by the U.S Department of Education, 77% of public schools recorded that one or more violent crimes had occurred on campus during the 2019-2020 school year,
Lisa Athan, a grief specialist and executive director of GriefSpeaks, an organization that provides assistance to children and teenagers processing grief, spoke to the VOICE.
Athan has been working in the field for 30 years, and goes around the country to give presentations and counseling to adults, children and teenagers alike. Athan goes to companies and schools who have sudden losses, not only including death.
GriefSpeaks is a part of the New Jersey Traumatic Coalition for Youth, which is a grant run organization in each county that provides a grief response team for schools, companies, and any space that has a sudden loss.
Schools reach out by phone, write a letter, saying what happened. The response team goes into each class, reads a script, and emphasizes how everyone grieves differently.
“Some adults feel they can protect kids by not talking about it. Parents get flustered and don’t want to talk about it,” Athan says.
Athan believes that not pushing kids to open up and letting them take the lead during sessions is the best way to provide proper counseling after traumatic situations. Athan says that grieving is a “lifelong process”, and that there are “no experts on grief.”
Students who resort to violence often have been physically or sexually abused themselves or have been exposed to violence at home or in other environments. There is usually a complex combination of factors that result in students resorting to violence, according to research done by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Schools are capable of preventing violence and making campuses a safe space, however it is also a shared social problem. Situations at home and outside school can be contributing factors to why students act out violently. Addressing cases of aggression will benefit students in the long run. Additionally, providing services to students to remedy these behaviors provides more safety in schools for students.
“Everyone grieves differently,” Athan says. “I want to show what healing can look like.”
