Dropping complex weapons case was the right call

There is no doubt that Brandon Wysocki made a terrible decision when he brought a handgun on a school field trip two years ago. The question of whether he should have been charged with a crime is somewhat murkier. That's because, based on two court decisions, Wysocki didn't know he could have refused to be searched by police. No search, no weapons. No weapons, no charge. Ultimately, however, we agree with Lorain County Prosecutor Tony Cillo's decision last week to drop the charge of possession of a deadly weapon in a school zone that Wysocki had faced. (The presence of the students, even though they were on a field trip, effectively created a school zone.) Cillo made the decision after the 9th District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that suppressed the key evidence in the case: the gun, along with the extra ammo, knife and Mace gel that Wysocki was carrying. Before we get into the merits of those decisions, let's revisit the chain of events that led to Wysocki crossing paths with police that September 2023 day. At the time, Wysocki was working as a substitute safety officer for Lorain Schools, although he wasn't on duty while volunteering as a chaperone for a group of students visiting a wooded area behind the former U.S. Steel plant. No one appeared to know Wysocki was armed. He said that he hadn't taken the gun into the school and that it had remained holstered the entire time. He also said he hadn't realized that bringing a gun on a school field trip would violate school policy. We have never found that claim believable. School shootings occur in this country with frightening regularity. Of all people, someone who worked in school security should have known about the dangers of unauthorized firearms in a school setting. (Wysocki resigned from the district after he was arrested.) He also has made the point that the group traveled to the wooded area by private bus rather than on district-owned transportation. That doesn't change the fact that he was armed while on a school outing. Wysocki has maintained that he brought the weapons because he was concerned about coyotes and wild dogs. For the sake of argument, let's say that Wysocki's fears about wild-animal attacks were valid. If that were the case, he should have brought his concerns to school officials and urged them not to take students into such a dangerous situation. Alternatively, he could have requested an armed escort. So far as we know he didn't do either. Instead, he appears to have appointed himself the field trip's armed guard without informing anyone. During the field trip's lunch break, a school employee told Wysocki that they needed to talk, according to the appeals court decision. After he got off the bus, Wysocki was told that something had happened at the school, and he and the other employee started walking up the road. Eventually, they came to a black SUV, which had two district employees inside, and two Lorain police cars. Wysocki was told he was being placed on administrative leave over an unrelated matter. He was told he wasn't allowed on school property and had to go with the officers, the decision said. One of the officers directed Wysocki to a cruiser. Here's where things went wrong, according to the appeals court. Although officers didn't have any reason to suspect Wysocki had committed a crime or was about to, they asked him if he had anything they needed to be concerned about. He told them about the weapons, which officers then took from him during a pat down. The appeals court's reasoning for why this was a problem is worth quoting at length: "We cannot say that the State demonstrated below that a reasonable person in Wysocki's situation would have believed that he or she could have objected to the search; instead, the record supports that Wysocki went along with what he thought was required of him. The nature of the interaction between Wysocki and the police was more in the nature of the police instructing Wysocki as to what would happen as opposed to the police fully explaining the situation to Wysocki." In other words, Wysocki didn't feel like he had a choice but to comply with what was later determined to be an improper search. There are a couple lessons to take away from all of this. First, police officers need to handle searches by the book lest any impropriety leads to rights being violated, crucial evidence being thrown out and cases dismissed. The other is that unless someone is lawfully permitted to carry a weapon in a school zone, he has no business carrying a gun in a school or on a school field trip. Wysocki seems to have belatedly recognized that, telling one of our reporters that he didn't feel the dismissal had "vindicated" his actions. Rather, he suggested his case might serve as an opportunity to examine safety procedures. If only he had been so thoughtful two years ago.