Connecticut Mother in Midlands Reacts

RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. (WOLO) — One mother we spoke with remembers a very different Connecticut growing up as a little girl in a nearby town. Now living in Sweden, but visiting family in Columbia, she has a renewed desire to keep her children safe. Midlands law enforcement officers do also. Tara Higgins attended school in nearby Danbury, CT, about a half hour from Newtown, the city that has become the face of one of the deadliest school shootings in recent memory. She says ‘nothing like that’ ever happened when she lived there. She’s horrified about the tragedy. Richland County Sheriff’s Deputies are as well. To stay prepared in the event of a similar incident in Richland School District Two’s 18 elementary schools, they go through tactical training on a regular basis. In addition to the 56 school resource officers in the entire county, officers say they work with administrators and school staff to prevent incidents like the one in Connecticut. Tara Higgins says the whole thing is enough to make any parent hold their children a little tighter, and law enforcement to stay a step ahead.