Simple device prevents shooters from entering classrooms, inventors say


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SALT LAKE CITY — A group of educators from Iowa developed a simple metal device that they say will keep a shooter out of a classroom and save lives in the event of a school shooting.

Daniel Nietzel is the president of Fighting Chance Solutions, a group of teachers and administrators that came together to develop equipment to protect students and teachers during an active shooter situation.

“It's a fact that we live in a society now where there is potential for you to be in the middle of a lesson and someone coming into your school with a gun to kill innocent children,” Nietzel said.

Nietzel helped create what is known as the Sleeve: a simple piece of metal that can be slipped on a door's hinges to lock it from the inside. It was created to protect students in the event of a school shooting and can resist up to 550 pounds of force.

"Being a school counselor, it really hits me,” said Edwin Colon, vice president of production at Fighting Chance Solutions. “You never want to deal with that and you cannot say that it will never happen here, the reality of the situation is that it can."

The group of educators say right now, most classrooms doors only lock from the outside. And during the Sandy Hook shooting, a teacher was shot when she stepped into the hallway to lock her door.

"She wasn't even involved in the main incident in the kindergarten classroom,” Nietzel said. “She was out of that, but she was still shot.”

This new invention is meant to prevent that. The device just quickly slips on the door to keep the shooter out and comes off in one second for evacuation.

"The science is there,” Colon said. “Our engineers did all the testing."

And if school districts won't fund it, the group made the device affordable for teachers to buy it.

"We have the potential to save lives, and to me there is nothing more noble than to save lives in the profession that we all chose to go into,” Nietzel said. “(It's) something very near and dear to our hearts.”

Schools and teachers can purchase the Sleeve for $65 at fightingchancessolutions.com.

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