Is Olathe school officer who shot student a hero? Maybe, but it’s too soon to know

The school resource officer who shot an Olathe East High School student with a gun last Friday has been heralded as a hero, and that might be exactly right.

But we still don’t know all that happened in the moments before Olathe Officer Erik Clark shot Jaylon Elmore, who’d allegedly produced a gun in the school office where Assistant Principal Kaleb Stoppel was also shot.

We’re waiting for the completion of the official investigation into the incident and exchange of gunfire. Did the officer prevent another mass school shooting, or was this something else?

We only know that three people were injured. No one was killed and the school resource officer, after being shot, too, was able to call for help and report that the weapon had been secured. Certainly any time a school resource officer is in a situation where he has to shoot a student, it is horrible, for that officer as well as for the student, the school and the whole community.

But as we have seen many times with police-involved shootings, the first narrative is often not the full story.

Clark and Stoppel have been released from the hospital, thank God, and Clark is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation by the multi-jurisdictional Johnson County Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Team. Two high-ranking members of the Olathe Police Department were part of that team in 2021.

Police investigating their own has not worked in the past. What role will Olathe Police Chief Mike Butaud and Captain Rick Parsons play in this inquiry? Both were active on the multi-agency team last year. Can they be impartial?

Elmore, an 18-year-old Olathe East football player, who was shot in the abdomen, is still in critical condition. And on social media, members of the community are calling him a thug.

Olathe East students returned to school on Monday with an extra police presence, therapy dogs and more counseling services available. Maybe more of those services might have helped Elmore, who pleaded guilty to robbery in 2020. In that case, he and another minor were accused of taking the victim’s wallet and punching him, law enforcement officials told us. Elmore’s probation in that case ended last year.

Of course Elmore, who has been charged with attempted capital murder, must answer for his behavior on Friday: What possessed him to bring a gun to school, and what happened then?

But there are other important questions that must be answered, too, like what parents, teachers, administrators and coaches knew about what was going on with him, and what attempts were made to help.

Paradoxically, the less we know, the easier it is to assume that we know everything we need to already.