3-2-18-ERNIE ALLEN’S-TOP STORY-

ATLANTA (AP) — Police say they don’t know why a popular teacher allegedly fired a handgun inside his classroom, causing a chaotic lockdown and evacuation of his Georgia high school. But it immediately pierced the national debate over whether educators should be armed.

As officers arrested Dalton High School social studies teacher Jesse Randal Davidson, his students spoke their minds on social media.

“My favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot. We had to run out the back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe,” student Chondi Chastain wrote in a tweet quickly shared thousands of times.

Davidson, 53, is accused of barricading himself inside a classroom and firing a handgun, sending students running outside or hunkering down inside darkened classrooms and a gymnasium locker room. He was taken into custody without incident after a 30- to 45-minute standoff with officers, and his motivations remained a mystery, Dalton Police spokesman Bruce Frazier said.

“Mr. Davidson did not give us much information about what his motives were or what may or may not have been the problem today,” Frazier said after detectives had interviewed the teacher.

Twice in recent years, Dalton police say they encountered the teacher exhibiting odd behavior and wrote in one report that he “may be delusional.” But Principal Steve Bartoo called Davidson an “excellent teacher” and said that “as far as I know he was fit to be at work.”

Classes were cancelled at the high school Thursday due to the shooting, although grief counselors were being made available and the students, who number about 2,000, were being allowed back in to recover their belongings. Classes were to resume on Friday, the school district announced.

The gunfire erupted with a nation on edge following a Florida school shooting that killed 17 students and faculty and ignited a new debate over gun control. President Donald Trump, who has advocated arming teachers, convened a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House to address gun violence on Wednesday afternoon.

Several Dalton students are tweeting their outrage that some on Twitter question whether the incident was staged. And Emma Gonzalez, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student whose passionate criticism of lawmakers has gained her more than 1.15 million Twitter followers, reacted by tweeting “LISTEN TO US FOR GOD’S SAKE, DO THE STUDENTS OF AMERICA REALLY MATTER THIS LITTLE TO YOU ???”

By JEFF MARTIN and ALINA HARTOUNIAN, Associated Press