SYRACUSE, N.Y. – When Tom Czyz woke up this morning, the last thing on his mind was catching the last plane from Syracuse to Madison, Wisconsin. It’s a flight he doesn’t want to take but knows he has to board.

“I am heartbroken. As a father, a retired police officer, I am heartbroken that something like this keeps happening. And I hate going to these gunfights. “I don’t want to go to these shootings every day and pray against them,” Czyz said.

Czyz is the founder and CEO of Armored One, a group whose sole mission is to save lives during an active shooter attack. Czyz heard about the shooting, immediately mobilized his forces and bought a ticket to Madison. He says that once he lands, he will immediately make his way to Abundant Life Christian School, where he comes across a scene he has participated in too many times.

Teacher and teenage student die in shooting at Christian school in Wisconsin; Motive unknown

“It immediately becomes a beacon for anyone who wants to go there and pay respect. It often seems to me as if it were unbelief. When I get there, people are just standing there in shock, staring at the school building, and.” I, I’ll tell you what, every single shoot I’ve been to, people have told me that I never thought that it would happen here and I’m sure I’ll definitely hear that tonight That breaks my heart People didn’t see it coming and they shouldn’t have seen it coming. So the thing is, I know I’m going to hear this tonight and there’s going to be a lot of sad people,” Czyz said.

“We think back to March 2023 when the shooting occurred in Nashville. It also took place at the Christian private school there. And I think that scares us as parents and as leaders of communities that are private schools. There’s a lot.” There’s a lot more parental involvement in these smaller private schools. The feeling that it wouldn’t happen there destroys and shatters the sense of security we have in America. whether our children are in public school or “But we think that the private schools are the safer ones, and we see that they are still being attacked,” Czyz said.

Since founding Armored One in 2012 after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Czyz and his team have attended dozens of school shootings. They offer help, support and expertise. They will also learn how to better prepare future educators in the event of a violent attack.

“As hard as it is for me to face the victims and their families to see what happened, it is nothing compared to what awaits these parents. So the more we can get out there, the more we will investigate and find out why these errors occurred and how we can prevent them from occurring in the future. And that’s not worth it to me at all. Not what I imagined today. You know, just a few weeks before Christmas. But I can’t imagine being someone in this school or in this community,” Czyz said.