GRAPEVINE, Texas — A Grapevine police officer was honored at the state capitol for his years-long mission to improve police response times for school emergencies.
Officer Patrick O’Neal was presented the 2023 State of Texas Law Enforcement Achievement Award for Public Service in the House of Representative Chamber on Friday, June 16.
“Officer O’Neal’s detailed and meticulous work has made Grapevine Police more efficient and better prepared,” the Grapevine Police Department (GPD) said in a press release.
O’Neal is a crime prevention officer, member of the Northeast Tarrant County SWAT team and serves on the Active Shooter Committee.
In 2017, he began his effort to make sure any Grapevine officer could quickly find any area or room on school campuses – even if that officer is not familiar with the building. He identified a need for standardized date, consistent numbering for doors and improved mapping for first responders in his community.
O’Neal told WFAA that the idea just “hit” him one day and he decided that something needed to be done, especially if other units aside from Grapevine were to respond to the schools for emergencies.
“We have a map book for the city, most cities do,” O’Neal said. “But it wasn’t detailed in that sense [for schools]. So, my goal was to develop as system to where all the officers who are not able to access the schools like I am when we actually get that call, God forbid we get that call, they have a system that they can go by to even access the school.”
After O’Neal gathered information, addressing both entry and exit points for all Grapevine schools, he went to the Grapevine Geographic Information System (GIS) staff to create easy-to-read maps of each campus that included details on all doors and accessibility for police.
“Long term is them being able to access that same map, even in a different city,” said O’Neal.
Now due to his efforts, Grapevine police officers and other law enforcement have those maps in tow – helping them to best enter and exit schools, find specific classrooms and know which doors need keys.