BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) As an incidence of violence was playing out in real time Wednesday for families of students at McKinley High School and for the
community, the police investigation is taking a more measured approach.
It's not "CSI", "Homicide: Life on the Street", or "Law and Order"
where a suspect is apprehended in less than an hour.
"These are very, very difficult situations to manage for the police department as well as the school district," said Jeff Rinaldo, former Captain of the Buffalo Police.
"Anytime there's a shooting in or around a school, it becomes an active shooter type response. The primary goal of officers and tactical teams is to locate and stop the threat and then run aide to the victims." Rinaldo said on WBEN Thursday morning. He added the response would have been the same whether the incident happened inside or outside of the school.
Why haven't we heard anything about a suspect or suspects? Rinaldo, who retired from the department in July of 2021, said Buffalo Schools have very good surveillance systems and there is a good chance that the incident, or part of the incident, was caught on video. Also, officers had an opportunity to interview over 100 students at the school before they were released.
"There is a chance that police have an identity on the suspect," he said. "If at some point they need assistance in locating that person, then they may go to the media to get assistance from the public." Rinaldo said there is excellent video coverage throughout the city of Buffalo. But he points out, in a case of
a large group fight, you need to be able to identify who did what. Sometimes, depending on the angle of the camera, it becomes difficult to clearly identify who produced a weapon such as a knife or gun. "It's not like a football game with instant replay," he said.
There is a safe cam program in Buffalo in which residents voluntarily disclose the existence of their surveillance systems. Detectives then refer to a map to identify the locations in and around a crime scene.
For hours on Wednesday it was believed the incident at McKinley was a double shooting. Later in the evening it was revealed that the student was stabbed multiple times and not shot. "I can easily understand why people would ask, how can that happen?," said Rinaldo. "Having been to hundreds of scenes like that, when there are gunshots fired, and an ambulance is working frantically to get the victim to a hospital, police do not have the ability to interview that person and stop the chaos at the same time."
The student was likely taken right to triage and then to surgery. Rinaldo said it would be some time before detectives could speak to the hospital and parents to determine the injuries.
What is the chance that police are looking for more than one suspect? Washington, D.C. based crime and terrorism analyst Brad Garrett says it's a possibility, but admits it's not unusual for a suspect to have more than one weapon. "I had a triple homicide in D.C. in the 1990's and it was two different guns and two different calibers. We thought it was two different shooters. But it turned out to be one shooter who carried two guns."
Garrett adds that hopefully police will provide some context soon as to the motive for the shooting at McKinley High School. "That will ultimately drive how the investigation proceeds," he said.
