Chief Sealth Campus Safety Team

Safety team meets at Chief Sealth High School

The newly formed Chief Sealth Campus Safety Team hosted a community safety meeting Tuesday night at the high school months after a student was shot and killed off campus.

SEATTLE - The newly formed Chief Sealth Campus Safety Team hosted a community safety meeting Tuesday night at the high school months after a student was shot and killed off campus.

Several meetings have been planned to talk about safety after high school. In January, 15-year-old student, Mobarak Adam, left campus and was shot and killed in the nearby community center.

Seattle Police are investigating his death as a homicide. His killer has not yet been caught.

The safety team hopes to address safety practices within several schools in the West Seattle area, including Chief Sealth International High School and Denny International Middle School.

"We are hurting," said Sharif Mohammed, Mobarak's father. "The law shouldn’t be protecting that killer."

Adam's father spoke Tuesday about the loss of his son and expressed frustration that the teen's killer hadn't faced justice.

"They were there with my son. They should have seen something happen, or they were involved," said Mohammed.

Seattle Police Captain Martin Rivera reassured him that the investigation is ongoing.

"We did identify almost everybody else involved, and everybody else involved was interviewed," said Rivera.

Community organizers like Deaunte Damper say Adam's death hit students and staff hard.

"When shootings are happening, we are immediately making them go back to school. How fair is that? Even for the teachers, how fair is that?," said Damper.

Although the shooting did not happen in the schools, the launch of an enhanced safety plan is underway at Chief Sealth and Denny International Middle School, including the installation of more external cameras to keep track of students who may leave campus.

Family members believe Adam may have left with friends during second lunch or fourth period, before he was found shot in the bathroom in the Southwest Recreation Complex community center.

"External door alarms, making sure we are alarming, working on truancy and cameras. there was aslo a request to add additional security staff. We have added an additional security staff to the Denny south campus," said Marni Campbell, the Executive Director of Operations for Seattle Public Schools.

Cameras in the rec center also weren't working. Officials said they had been broken for years and provided no clues.

"We don’t know exactly why. We believe there was a budget constraint that happened. That's got a great reason, but we wanted to be transparent," said Brian Judd, the interim recreation division director at Seattle Parks & Recreation.

Judd says new cameras are now installed and operational at the Southwest Pool and Recreation Complex and staff members have been added.

"We actually have 20 park rangers that are onboarded who will be roaming around… who will be responsible for really doing some safety audits around our buildings," said Judd.

Students also spoke out about second-hand trauma from Adam's death.

"As adults in fields outside the school, I think it’s important that you come up to us first," said one student.

Those who attended were asking to hear more about solutions and available support one-on-one.

"As a student, I don’t know where to go, and it shouldn’t be on me for me to reach out and find ways to help my community," they said.

A community member also asked about safety in the parking areas, requesting that something be done to prevent exhibition driving and gatherings that lead to shootings.

The principal of Denny International Middle School said that they have already started locking the gates to the parking lots on weekends. The principal of the high school said that they may consider doing that as well in the future.

Family members are trying to raise funding online to hire a private investigator in the case.