On Saturday, Feb. 1 Glenn Indoor Percussion attended their first competition of the season at Pasadena Memorial High School in Houston, but were unable to compete after an active shooter fired shots inside the facility. All GIP performers, staff and parents were safe and unharmed. However the shooter, identified as 83-year-old Dennis Erwin Brandl, fired a shot that hit a tech from the Angleton High School Band in the shoulder.
GIP was outside finishing up their warm ups when they saw people running from the school. After being told of the situation, the group quickly made their way as far away from the school as possible.
“I thought it was a fire at first and then as I gathered my surroundings I understood that it was not,” junior Braeden Favacho said. “The main thing [I was thinking about] was making sure that everybody was together.”
The situation was handled calmly and efficiently by percussion director Jacob Gall and head band director Matthew Garrison who helped with communication from Glenn.
“Luckily our bus driver, Mike, is amazing,” Garrison said. “He and the other driver went and got the buses and brought them around because we wanted [the students] to have a safe space and not just be outside.”
The Texas Color Guard Circuit organization itself will be reevaluating safety procedures to ensure the safety of all attending their events. GIP has decided to continue their season despite this incident, however they will not be attending any future competitions at the Pasadena Memorial campus.
“This is the activity that they love and that they have a passion for,” Garrison said. “[The students] don’t spend the number of hours working on it because they don’t love it, and I don’t want one person to take that from them. Especially when there are policies and procedures in place that should protect them.”
While all the Glenn performers were left physically unharmed, many were left shaken from the experience.
“It was so surreal because I remember seeing people running,” senior Isabel Mondragon said. “Obviously it’s a parking lot, so I didn’t really think much of it at the moment. But then I heard someone yell, one of the dads. He said that someone had a gun and to run.”
While the experience was emotionally taxing for many band members and staff, some students have chosen to see the bright side.
“This is going to sound really really cliche but do not take anything for granted,” Mondragon said. “You really don’t realize how much these people are going to care about you and what you’re going to go through together… You really don’t know how much you care for things until it’s almost taken away from you.”