By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
A brutal attack on Rob Couturier’s daughter led the Michigan man to invent a safety system being used in schools around the nation. That system, called the “Boot,” will soon be installed on 344 doors in Bowling Green City Schools.
Couturier’s daughter, a petite college freshman, was attacked and almost raped. That was just over six years ago, and he still chokes as he talks about it.
“I still remember her face,” Couturier said to the school board Tuesday evening. “She turned to look at me and couldn’t see me. Her face was beat to a pulp.”
Couturier knew the perpetrator and located the man shortly after the attack. Couturier tried to break down the door, dislocating his shoulder in the process. He then kicked his way through drywall to get the attacker. He saw the man barricading the door with his boots wedged up against the door.
That gave the father an idea. He created the “Boot,” a rectangular-shaped plate of quarter-inch thick industrial steel. With two steel pegs, the plate can withstand 16,000 pounds of pressure and keep doors closed to intruders.
But the idea stopped there, with Couturier continuing his job as a school custodian, facilities employee and coach.
A couple years later, after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Couturier’s daughter called her dad about his invention. “It would have saved every one of those children,” she said to him.
“I was so mad, I was only thinking of my daughter,” and not about how his invention could help others, Couturier said. So he resigned his job, sold his summer home, and started working with law enforcement and other security experts on fine-tuning his invention.
His mission became keeping kids safe in the event of an intruder.
His business, called The Lockdown Co., started making the “Boots” by hand, and has since installed safety equipment in more than 100 public schools and 18 private schools.
Bowling Green Superintendent Francis Scruci recently saw Couturier make a presentation on the safety equipment, and immediately asked the inventor to walk the local school buildings with him. In addition to arming each door with the “Boot,” Couturier said the rooms need to be labeled more clearly to aid law enforcement when they arrive on the scene.
“The signage in your building is absolutely horrible,” he said.
Couturier also recommended that the district invest in a couple ballistic shields, which would slow down an intruder trying to get access through an outside glass door. He disagreed with the opinion from security experts that some victims at building entrances are “acceptable losses.”
“The acceptable loss is unacceptable,” he said.
Couturier emphasized over and over that he is not in the business to make money.
“I am not a polished salesman at all,” he said.
The entire cost to secure every door in the district is $106,108. There is no charge for installation. Couturier said if the district doesn’t have the funds now, it can pay in a year or work out a payment plan like other districts have done.
Couturier also said if the district renovates or constructs new buildings, his company will reinstall the equipment at no charge.
“Boots” for Bowling Green’s buildings could be ready in six or seven weeks – making it the second Ohio school to get the security system behind Otsego. Wood Lane has also agreed to purchase the system.
“When I saw this product, there was no doubt what we needed to do,” Scruci said. “We can’t afford not to have this.”
District Treasurer Rhonda Melchi said appropriations will have to be adjusted, but “we fill find some money” for the security system.
Couturier said he will work with local police and the sheriff’s office on numbering all the rooms. The police and sheriff will also have one “Boot” installed at each office for free so they can train on it. Special keys coded for each building allow law enforcement to access rooms barricaded by the “Boots.”
