Aftermath of Cape Girardeau’s graduation shooting: What went wrong, what’s next

Four months ago, a Cape Girardeau high school graduation was interrupted by a gunshot that injured two people.

It served as a wake-up call to the community.

As blood spilled in the concourse area, chaos ensued in the arena as fears of an active shooter spurred people to scramble for the exits. Student resource officers acted quickly and diffused the threat.

Ultimately, order was restored, the crowd exited and arrests were made. The injuries sustained by two people, the result of a personal altercation, were not fatal. One of the men brought a gun into the ceremony and it was fired during the fight.

The general consensus of those who attended the ceremony and officials in charge is that the community is fortunate the shooter did not come to the graduation May 19 with the intent to cause widespread harm.

The gunshot rattled the status quo at four of the area’s largest public bodies. At least two area public school districts upgraded their security around their schools and at large events. Southeast Missouri State University increased its security, leading to long lines entering football games, for example. The City of Cape Girardeau appointed a task force to look at gun violence policies and solutions.

All three Cape Girardeau entities were connected to the May 19 shooting: The graduation was for Cape Girardeau Public Schools; the building hosting the event is run by the university; and the officers who work in the school district are trained and commissioned by the City of Cape Girardeau Police Department.

The schools’ security measures are still being tested. In the first month of school, several districts and law enforcement agencies have responded and were forced to make difficult decisions in response to gun and bomb threats that stoked worry throughout the greater Southeast Missouri region. The threats were deemed not credible but served as a reminder of the ongoing conflict between keeping children safe and the job of educating students up to and including graduation.

The Southeast Missourian has examined certain elements of security and response relating to the graduation shooting. The newspaper issued records requests and conducted several interviews seeking to understand why metal detectors were not in use at the graduation ceremony; who was ultimately in charge of providing security at the event; and why officials reacted the way they did in the moments after the shot was heard. Among the newspaper’s findings:

• Officials with the school district and at the Show Me Center said they had no reason to believe there would be gun violence at the graduation ceremony.

• Both the school district and the Show Me Center had access to hand-held metal-detecting wands but did not discuss using them for the graduation ceremony.

• The routine contract used for tenants of the Show Me Center did not list metal detectors as being available to the district.

• School resource officers engaged with the individuals involved in the shooting about 20 seconds after the gunshot.

• The appointed board in charge of setting policy at the Show Me Center has not met in four years and has not met since the shooting.

• Cape Girardeau Public Schools officials plan to have next year’s graduation at one of its facilities, to ensure better security.

• Officials associated with the school district assert the superintendent acted appropriately in asking for the crowd to remain calm and seated rather than evacuate immediately.

Four days after the shooting, Cape Girardeau Public Schools issued a statement:

“Without interruption, we have hosted graduation at various locations throughout the years, including the Show-Me Center,” the district said. “We had no reason to believe that heightened security would be necessary. The safety of our students, their families, and our staff is always our top priority, and we are continuously evaluating the situation.”

Even before the arena could be cleared, news spread of the shooting. Almost immediately, people questioned how and why a person was able to get a gun into the Show Me Center filled with thousands of people.

One reason is that metal detection devices were not used at the entrance of the facility.

National problem

Nationally, school shootings have pierced the collective consciousness.

Gun reform and school security have been among the country’s most-discussed topics for the past several election cycles; discussions are especially fierce following a mass shooting. Active shooter training has become common in schools because school shootings also have become common. The U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory that firearm violence has become a public health crisis in America.

Data collected by the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows suburban schools are more likely to have mass shootings, while urban, poor and high-minority schools have more shootings overall.

Shootings in urban schools such Cape Girardeau Public Schools, were more motivated by disputes. Thirty-one percent of school shootings were related to a conflict or fight, including gang-related violence, with 9% involving a domestic fight involving family members or romantic partners. The shooter in half of school shootings is a student or former student.

A study performed by the American College of Surgeons stated that handguns accounted for 84% of all school shootings. Gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, more than 338,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school.

Local gun violence

By the time graduation was held, Cape Girardeau had already seen several instances of high-profile shootings, including those that took lives of students.

KaMari Childress was shot and killed in the parking lot of the CVS where she worked Feb. 27. She had graduated in December from Central Academy, according to her obituary. An ex-boyfriend was charged with her murder, and two others face charges relating to the murder. Their ages were 20, 21 and 20. During that shooting, a nearby construction worker was injured from a stray bullet.

In April, a man pleaded guilty to shooting a different teenage girl in 2019. Madison Robinson died from a drive-by gunshot that was intended for one of her family members. In the aftermath of that shooting, school officials reached out to the Southeast Missourian to request certain information be removed from its website, because the information was causing friction among students from different families inside the school. At the sentencing hearing in April, the suspect and family members in the courtroom shouted at one another, causing the judge to threaten to kick everyone out of the courtroom.

In January of 2024, the last of the known participants in a shooting at Hotshots Bar and Grill that injured five was arrested. The high-profile case involved a fight at the pool tables, followed by gunshots that sent bullets flying throughout the establishment, injuring innocent bystanders. It caused trauma for many inside the establishment at the time, including college students who told university faculty they were struggling to cope after the shooting.

In nearby Charleston, a 14-year-old unintentionally discharged a stolen gun during a fight in the men’s restroom at the football facility in March. The shooting forced a lockdown at the high school. School was canceled for two days while the district discussed strengthening safety protocols.

Detectors on hand

Before the May 19 graduation, the Show Me Center possessed metal-detecting wands to use at events. Entertainers had previously requested them for their security measures. Meanwhile, the school district installed a metal detector at its Central Academy building entrance. In interviews, officials told the Southeast Missourian the school had ordered more metal detectors, but those had not yet arrived.

Officials from the Show Me Center and the school district acknowledged the tenant — in this case, the school district — was in charge of security.

The facility use contract, obtained by the Southeast Missourian, appears to confirm this. The contract contains an indemnity clause that absolved the Show Me Center from responsibility for deaths or injuries, but it also said the Show Me Center “in the interest of public safety or the maintenance of good order” had the right to interrupt or terminate any performance.

Included in the base contract are 66 additional products or services that could be included by the Show Me Center for the event for an extra charge. Among those are T-shirt security, and “T-shirt LEAD” security, uniformed security and ushers. The school district chose to have T-shirt and T-shirt LEAD security and ushers, but elected not to have uniformed security, because it would use the school resource officers instead. Not on the list of 66 options offered by the Show Me Center was metal detective wands or metal detection services.

There were no discussions about using metal detection technology as security.

“We have never had those options listed or anything with that,” said Wil Gorman, director of the Show Me Center. “We just had it listed as T-shirt security and they would need to send that request. We never got a request in email from them asking for that. Otherwise, we would say, ‘OK, this is the option. This is the number of people we would need to have that happen.’”

On its website, the Show Me Center states that metal detectors are used at “all major events”. Gorman said the wording on its website does not reflect the overall policy of using the wands.

“That was put out there and we have not taken it down,” he said. “It’s something that was put out there and it was, I think, before we had an event for WWE about a year and a half, two years ago. It wasn’t worded great, and the way it was worded made it sound like it was all the time, but it was mainly for the WWE event.

“We have staff, and we work together. Safety is always paramount with what we do. I oversee the staff, and we are part of the International Association of Venue Managers, and attend a venue management school. … We go through trainings and everything like that. With a situation like this that occurred, I probably cannot comment with an active case going on, but this was a non-ticketed event and we have never had the bag checks at any of the graduations or commencements for the university. We have not had metal detectors or anything like that. We have done ones for summer ticketed events, for concerts and WWE, but that's about it.”

Gorman said the Show Me Center is “working through” whether to add the option to choose metal detectors to the list of contract options to its tenant contract.

University officials told the Southeast Missourian that blanket statements about the use of metal detectors don’t work for venues such as the Show Me Center because it can host events for dozens of people or thousands.

The Show Me Center was not alone in forgoing metal detectors for graduation ceremonies. An official with Southern Illinois University said in an interview that the university does not use metal detectors for a high school graduation it hosts at its arena. Messages seeking policies for metal detector use sent to the University of Missouri, Missouri State University and St. Louis University were not returned.

Leslie Washington, an activist with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said she supports adding metal detectors to the Show Me Center.

“I feel that metal detectors need to be put in place,” she said. “I just feel it’s a necessity. If we would have had metal detectors and better security in place at that venue for that graduation, this wouldn’t have — this shouldn’t have — happened. You work so hard for your graduation, and then it’s taken away from you. My heart goes out to those kids. No child should live in fear. It just frustrates me that these things continue to happen in Cape. When I moved to Cape in 2013, gun violence wasn’t this bad. It’s just gotten worse, and we just have to do better.”

The good news for Washington is that Cape Girardeau Public Schools has changed course.

“At the time, we felt confident in our security protocols that we had in place, and we had no reason to believe that an incident like what occurred would happen,” said Kristin Tallent, Cape Girardeau Public Schools communications director. “In hindsight, do we wish we had had the weapons detection systems in use? Absolutely. 100%. And moving forward, we will have those in use at graduation and large crowd gatherings.”

Tallent was one of three school district officials, joining superintendent Howard Benyon and Josh Crowell, the assistant superintendent of support services, who interviewed with the Southeast Missourian about security measures relating to the graduation shooting.

“When you pose a question in hindsight, asking about what is our hindsight like that, could we have had TSA checkpoints set up at every possible entrance? That’s not practical,” Crowell said. “There's no way we could get that implemented. The use of weapons detection systems had already been in use at one of our buildings the whole previous school year. We had more units on order, but we didn't have them operable at this time. Had we had those, that would have been great. But, again, with the resources that we had, with what we had disposed to us and what we could use at the time, we felt we had good protocols in place. It was only because this happened that causes us to reflect, ‘What could we have done different?’ And I completely understand that.

“Honestly, can you truly prevent anything at any time? I'm going to tell you no. I'm reaching out here, but if you're looking at what took place on a national political level, you had an assassination attempt that took place when you're supposed to have the most highly trained government agency protecting these individuals, and look what happened there.”

“... The one thing, and I'll take this head-on, is we had one weapons detection unit that we could have had there. But you would be sitting here asking us different questions if we made 6,000 people go through one unit, because it would have been worse than a SEMO football game. So from an angle of, ‘Why didn't Cape do this?’ Well, because then we would have been crucified that it wasn't done to somebody else's standards and what they wanted. To try to get a grandmother through that line, it would have taken five hours, and we would have had people having heat stroke, or heat exhaustion or whatnot, and then we would have been criticized for not letting people get into the air conditioner.”

Benyon said the district has already decided that security will be different for the 2025 graduation.

“We’ve already been having those conversations at the beginning of the school year,” the superintendent said. “We want to make sure that we have a safe graduation and people feel comfortable. We've decided for this year that we're going to go ahead and have it at the junior high again. Because we know when we're at our facilities, they're extremely safe and we can control our facilities.

“When you get a bigger venue, it’s different. Whether we decide to go back to SEMO, we’ll have different conversations with them with protocol, just like you’re talking about, with the weapons detectors and those types of things, as well. They’ve purchased some as well for their football games, so that’ll be another discussion if we want to go back to SEMO. Right now, we felt the best controlled environment would be if we did it ourselves. Sure, we’ll have limited tickets available to families as a part of that.”

Remaining calm

Immediately following the gunshot May 19, there was a moment of silent uncertainty, then a scramble.

Many of the students, including graduation participants and many other attendees, headed for the exits, according to several people who were there.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Stacy Kinder, who was there for her son who was graduating, called it “the most chaotic and scary scene I’ve ever experienced.”

Some people pushed through and stumbled over one another to flee to safety. Students, teachers and staff had participated in active shooter drills every year to prepare for such moments. For them, their first reaction was to move. School districts across the country undergo what is called ALICE training, an acronym for “Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.”

U.S. Homeland Security and the FBI advise a run-hide-fight approach for workplace settings and adults, which may not be appropriate in some school settings. ALICE is geared more toward a collective response.

A few moments passed before Benyon addressed the crowd, asking everyone to remain calm and seated while the source of the noise was checked. He told the crowd it may have been balloons popping. A balloon drop was to be part of the celebration. According to Crowell, who said he was unable to attend, school resource officers made it to the subjects involved in the altercation within 20 seconds.

According to information provided by Cape Girardeau Police Lt. Richard Schmidt, the first call of the shooting came in at 2:33 p.m., as officers were already present at the Show Me Center. Schmidt said the shooter was detained at 2:38, and the scene was secured for medical units to enter at 2:39.

That data suggests more than five minutes transpired before it was known the shooter was in custody. While only one shot was fired at the Cape Girardeau graduation, five minutes is an eternity in mass shooting terms. Adam Lanza needed less than five minutes to fire 154 rounds and kill 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

In the days following the shooting, Benyon, Crowell and SRO Mark Wyatt spoke to news reporters at a news conference. Benyon offered praise to the SROs. Crowell said the response was a “combined effort.” Benyon explained at the time he was being instructed by police.

As part of its response to the newspaper’s open records request, the school district released two letters sent by parents calling into question leaders’ response to the gunshots. In one letter, parent Jennifer Proctor said the evacuation was not done safely, as people were stumbling and tripping over one another to leave the facility after the gunshot. She was perhaps most concerned about the delay in evacuating the facilities.

“Please, all of you,” she wrote, “take a lesson out of the playbook that you give the students during every active shooter drill. RUN, HIDE, DEFEND. But don’t stay seated while you ‘check to see if it was something else.’ You failed to practice active shooter protocol and there was literally an active shooter in VERY close proximity to the students and the audience … The students on the floor, to their credit, relied on every bit of their 13 years of active shooter training and they disappeared.”

In another correspondence, Shannon Clubb, a teacher for the last 17 years and a parent whose child was graduating, wrote to the administration asking what steps the district made to ensure the Show Me Center was safe.

“Our SROs were utilized and ultimately saved the day, but at this point, that appears to be despite of District failing to follow its own policies and procedures," Clubb said. “I am angry with the response of the administration on stage at the Show Me Center. … Ever since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, every Cape Public School employee must have ALICE training to handle active shooters. This training in and of itself is traumatic. My fellow staff members and I have watched videos of the actual murders at Columbine, Parkland and other mass-casualty shootings all over the world. We have heard the recordings of 911 calls with children screaming and crying in pain and terror … In live simulations, I have been ‘shot’ in the head with a real gun pointed at my face. All of this is traumatic … but it is essential in keeping our children safe, so we all endure. It taught me many important things: seconds matter, information matters, people that get out will live, and if you hear a gun do NOT look to confirm.

"… At this point, my ALICE training with Josh Crowell kicked in. I knew what to do. Evacuate. Immediately. … However, contrary to the training, as I was pulling my family members toward the exit, Dr. Benyon got on the microphone to tell everyone to stay in their seats. He said they were checking to see if it was a balloon popping. CHS teachers were blocking students who were running to safety and told them to return to their seats.”

The “Alert” name in the acronym advises that “the sooner you understand you’re in danger, the sooner you can save yourself,” according to alicetraining.com, a website built by a company that gives training. “A speedy response is critical. Seconds count. Alert is overcoming denial, recognizing the signs of danger and receiving notifications about the danger from others. Alerts should be accepted, taken seriously and should help you make survival decisions based on your circumstances.”

The “I” in ALICE, inform, recommends communicating information in as real time as possible, including communicating a shooter’s location and direction in real time, according to the ALICE website. If the shooter is known to be in an isolated section of a building, occupants in other parts of the building can evacuate, while those in direct danger can prepare to counter.

Administrators declined to address Clubbs’ comments specifically, saying it is a personnel matter. But to the larger point of Benyon’s immediate response, Benyon acknowledged he didn’t immediately know the cause of the sound, but he also didn’t want people running into a dangerous situation, if it was an active shooter.

“All of a sudden, you just saw kind of a wave come down all the way down to the floor at that point,” Benyon said. “Once we did that, we had to assess what had occurred, because someone had said it could have been a chair, it could have been a balloon popping. We didn't know what it was, so we had to assess what the situation was first. That's probably the most important thing that we do. We have to determine what occurred, because you don't want to send people off into an unsafe situation. Once we saw that this was occurring, our SRO officer, Mark Wyatt, came down, and we started having a conversation. He was communicating with the school resource officers that were up on the mezzanine, and they had contained the situation within, what, 15 to 20 seconds or so.

“Then the police came, came on. We were trying to calm the audience and just say, ‘Wait, let's determine what had happened.’ Shortly after that, we got notified that the police had taken over, and they were determining the safety of everything around the perimeter of the Show Me Center. At that point, once we knew the north side was safe for exit, they exited people out the north side. Then, they checked the south side and we allowed them to go out the south side.”

Changes made

The shooting inside the Show Me Center sparked major changes.

SEMO added security cameras at locations throughout campus; metal detectors will be used at the Show Me Center, Houck Field, the River Campus and other events with large attendance; only clear bags will be allowed for visitors at athletic events; and it is limiting designated entrances on buildings on campus.

At Cape Girardeau schools, in addition to moving the graduation ceremony back to the junior high building, the ordered weapon detection systems arrived and have been installed at schools and utilized at other extracurricular events. Jackson, which also had its graduation ceremonies at the Show Me Center, purchased two sets of weapon detection systems to be used at school events that are open to the public.

“Hundreds of people were involved in conversations after this event took place, between our staff, our administrators, law enforcement, parents, community members, board members,” Crowell said. “There are some new processes that we're looking at and that we have implemented, but we also run a balancing act on making sure our students, our staff and our community members still feel like they're coming into a school. We're not in the business of building prisons.”

Legal process

For all the reflection of the shooting on security and leaders, ultimately the scare was caused by an altercation near a stairwell between adults who decided to fight at a graduation ceremony.

A probable-cause document explained SROs found two people fighting. Christopher Jermaine Owens, who was shot in the leg and was apprehended on charges he was a sex offender and should not have been at the graduation, told police he and his son got up to use the restroom “when they ran into two individuals who he has been in conflict with.”

Police located a second victim on the north side of the building. He had a gunshot to his abdomen. The gunshot had appeared to have entered his abdomen, exited his buttocks and struck the other victim. One of the subjects involved, whose name was redacted, said the shooter pulled a gun from his waist area, and said the “gun went off” striking him in the abdomen.

Both injured men were taken to area hospitals for their injuries.

Kris E. Owens of Cape Girardeau, 20, was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. Owens waived his formal arraignment and entered a not-guilty plea Sept. 16. Owens’ case review is scheduled Monday, Nov. 4, with Judge Scott Lipke presiding over the case.

Christopher J. Owens was charged with loitering within 500 feet of school property as a registered sex offender. He is in federal custody, and his case review is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 5.