A Grapevine police officer named Patrick O’Neal was given the 2023 State of Texas Law Enforcement Achievement Award for Public Service in Austin last Friday.
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCLE) presented the award to O’Neal and other recipients from around the state in the House chamber.
The former SWAT officer with 17 years of experience on the force developed detailed maps of nearly two dozen school campuses in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD to improve law enforcement’s emergency response times and capabilities. O’Neal spent five years creating blueprints for each campus, paying particular attention to entry and exit points.
In a news release, the Grapevine Police Department noted:
“In 2017, Officer O’Neal began an effort to ensure any Grapevine officer could quickly find any area or room on a school campus, even if the officer is not familiar with the building. O’Neal identified a need for standardized data and consistent numbering for doors, as well as improved mapping for first responders.”
“When I was doing the mapping process, I would literally walk every square foot of those locations,” O’Neal explained to NBC 5. “So being able to walk those [buildings] inch-by-inch and track every door, every wall, every crevice and then bringing that to fruition.”
He partnered with the City of Grapevine’s Geographic Information System (GIS) staff in 2021 to digitize his detailed school maps to transform law enforcement’s emergency response times and effectiveness. The GIS team earned a Special Achievement Award from Esri, a geographic information software company, for the mapping project in 2021.
TCLE noted in a publication outlining officers’ achievements ahead of the award ceremony that O’Neal’s efforts to improve school campus safety in the event of an emergency stood out among other initiatives focusing on prevention.
“Officer Patrick O’Neal had the foresight to develop ways to improve response times to active threats on school campuses within his community,” read the publication.
As The Dallas Express recently covered, several Texas school districts like Dallas ISD and Mesquite ISD have implemented a clear backpack policy in a bid to bolster campus safety by making it harder for students to bring weapons to school.
Dallas ISD, in particular, has seen a number of gun-related incidents over the last year prompt concerns about safety in the troubled school system, the second-biggest in Texas. As previously reported by The Dallas Express, a student was shot in the parking lot of a North Dallas high school. Some months before that, an elementary school student managed to bring a firearm onto campus. The gun was accidentally discharged, but luckily no one was hurt.
While the clear backpack measure has been met with mixed reactions from experts, educators, and parents, it points to a larger trend of districts reassessing their safety protocols in the wake of recent mass shootings in schools.
To better respond to these kinds of emergencies, O’Neal’s system has standardized data for each school, which has been color-coded. All doors have been numbered, and information is provided on the keys needed to open them.
“It’s always good to look at to develop a plan to where you can respond quickly, not only get there but get to the right locations,” said O’Neal, according to NBC 5.
He explained that the system had been tested last year during an incident at a Grapevine high school and successfully helped officers respond quickly to the scene.
Even before his recent award, O’Neil had become a bit of a celebrity at one school in particular — Timberline Elementary.
“When Officer O’Neal comes in he’s like a rock star, he gets lots of attention, high fives, fist bumps, and smiles,” said Timberline Principal Liz Hilcher, according to NBC 5.
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