After a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, Eddie Chelby decided he didn't want to take any chances with his son’s or anyone other kid's safety.
Chelby, a U.S. Army veteran who has since worked in the security field for the last 12 years, decided it was time for him to take action to try and keep kids and teachers safe while at school.
The day after the shooting, Chelby started standing, unarmed, outside his son’s elementary school in Killeen, Texas while it was in session.
“It would be selfish of me to not use what I do for a living to help the community,” he said.
So far in 2022, there have been at least 24 acts of gun violence on K-12 campuses during the school day, according to The Washington Post.
“I was in basic training and my good friend was from Colorado,” Chelby said. “I remember thinking it was the craziest thing I’d ever heard.”
Then the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut happened in 2012, and the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland happened in 2018.
“It just went on and on and many times when these shootings happened, I was overseas,” Chelby said. “But when I became a father, those shootings really started hitting home for me.”
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Chelby has four children; a 28-year-old son, a 20-year-old daughter, a 17-year-old daughter, and a 10-year-old son.
He said when the shooting in Parkland happened, he was well into his security career and wanted to help tighten security for schools.
“It a lot of times came down to budget,” he said. “A lot of cases there is no big security changes and a lot of times it’s because of the district and economic stuff surrounding the school.”
Chelby said after each shooting, he gets more torn up along with other people in the U.S. and wanted to offer up his service, if nothing else, to at least give people in his community peace of mind.
“I think we need to take security of our schools more seriously,” he said. “We have good measures of security in place for places like government sites so I don’t see why guarding our future and children isn’t as important.”
Chelby said there used to be a watchdog group for his 10-year-old son’s school, and many parents are coming together to attend an upcoming school board meeting to try to bring the group back.
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“We want to see what we can do legally and to also just provide a presence because just showing there is a hard target is a good enough deterrent,” he said. “We can’t just wait for people to pass legislation, and the quickest course of action for our school is to have parents take shifts in front of the school.”
When Chelby heard about the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, he was immediately heartbroken. The age of the victims hit home hardest. because, not only does he have a 10-year-old son, but he also coaches a 10-and-under baseball team.
“I had to coach these kids later that day and as I watched them play, I thought about how many 10-year-olds had just been killed that day,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many tears I was shedding. It was physically wearing me out.”
Alongside thinking “what if that had happened here and I lost my son?” Chelby was also thinking about what if his wife, a school nurse at the elementary school, was killed.
Chelby said there are a lot of veterans and people in the military in his community and he hopes they get involved in keeping schools safe.
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“When I left active duty, I felt ostracized because I couldn’t go on post anymore and I was done working with my team,” he said, adding many veterans experience PTSD and depression because they feel a disconnect after leaving the military.
“One way they can bring back a sense of belonging is by volunteering at schools in the community to keep our kids safe,” he said.
Chelby said it’s time to take action and schools need all the help they can get.
“This isn’t a cure-all for every district, but the bare minimum we can do is volunteer our time,” he said. “We need to get creative and get serious about this.”