For everyone insisting MCPS reinstate SROs

[Anonymous]

So, I personally know a retired MoCo police officer who served as a SRO in several schools (from the rich ones to the poor ones). He still works in local public schools in a position unrelated to security. He still sees the value in having heightened security onsite for myriad reasons.

They proactively had black police officers onsite. It worked well.

Now they have low level “security” onsite. How shall I put this? Men in such positions are oftentimes doing it because they have personality issues and thrive on having “authority” over others.

That’s a recipe for disaster imho.

I’d rather have black police officers if critics feel like white ones can’t be trusted. Personally, I think we can trust white officers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

No, guns are not the reason why you need a cop. You need a cop because in this country, the people who you call when you've been mugged, robbed, beaten up, raped, etc. is guess what- a cop. And guess what- those things DO happen in schools as much as you don't want to admit. There are some kids who do these terrible things and yes, they should be arrested. Do you disagree? Also, cops are in the community- they know what is happening, they hear things, and they check up on it. The SROs are able to mitigate or help prevent beef from escalating at the schools. I'm sorry to break it to you but these are cops who do this type of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New suggestion for improving safety at school. Most of the cases I have read about shootings at school involve students obtaining a gun owned by their parents. Maybe unsecured, maybe in a safe, either way, that was the weapon(s) they used. My suggestion: if you have a teenage boy at home, do not also have a gun at home. Period. Bring it back after they move out.

Suggestion - why don't genius parents like you offer to be security since you think this is an easy fix.

I 100% don't think there is an easy fix. Obviously there is no one solution. But not having guns in the home would have prevented so many of these incidents. People like to say "oh they'd just have gotten them somewhere else" - no they wouldn't! These are kids, not criminal masterminds. Half the time they bring them to school is because they think they need them to feel safe, which is a lesson easily learned by observing dad's attitude about guns.

We can't get anywhere on gun control, fine, can we at least spread the message that if you want kids to be safer, you should remove guns from your own home? I found fourteen mass shooters since 2017 that got their gun via their parents, about half of which got them out of the gun safe. Having that driven home might make some people stop and think. If you are on this board saying anything like "we need cops in schools to protect our students from guns, what else can we possibly do" and you have a teenager and gun in your house, I'm telling you that removing it is a very tangible action you can and should take. Will this convince everyone, absolutely not, some of these kids have nightmare parents that seem to want them to commit a crime. But a lot of them don't - instead they have serious mental health problems, sometimes ones they are successfully hiding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

No, guns are not the reason why you need a cop. You need a cop because in this country, the people who you call when you've been mugged, robbed, beaten up, raped, etc. is guess what- a cop. And guess what- those things DO happen in schools as much as you don't want to admit. There are some kids who do these terrible things and yes, they should be arrested. Do you disagree? Also, cops are in the community- they know what is happening, they hear things, and they check up on it. The SROs are able to mitigate or help prevent beef from escalating at the schools. I'm sorry to break it to you but these are cops who do this type of work.

PP again. Here- President Obama explains why SROs are important: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/03/28/school-resource-officers

[Anonymous]

The answer is SROs in school but better training and accountability for these officers - maybe they wear body cam. Let's not throw out a program we need because we aren't implementing it correctly. Let's fix it. Please, the kids need safety in schools. Our "lower rated' school has so many fights and incidents. How can anyone not want another adult whose sole purpose is to make the school safer??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The answer is SROs in school but better training and accountability for these officers - maybe they wear body cam. Let's not throw out a program we need because we aren't implementing it correctly. Let's fix it. Please, the kids need safety in schools. Our "lower rated' school has so many fights and incidents. How can anyone not want another adult whose sole purpose is to make the school safer??

They are MCPD officers so pretty sure they’ve been wearing body cameras for a few years now. I agree they need more training — most officers are really happy to get more training for their job; the departments are often too cheap to do enough. There already is oversight through the principal but if it would make people feel better, perhaps there could be a security working group with a couple parents, a couple teachers, admin and the SRO. If there are concerns with the SRO, they can and should be elevated so the principal can request as reassignment from MCPD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

No, guns are not the reason why you need a cop. You need a cop because in this country, the people who you call when you've been mugged, robbed, beaten up, raped, etc. is guess what- a cop. And guess what- those things DO happen in schools as much as you don't want to admit. There are some kids who do these terrible things and yes, they should be arrested. Do you disagree? Also, cops are in the community- they know what is happening, they hear things, and they check up on it. The SROs are able to mitigate or help prevent beef from escalating at the schools. I'm sorry to break it to you but these are cops who do this type of work.

If I’ve been attacked I call the police.

If I want to prevent an attack I hire a private security company. If a mentally I’ll child is in distress I call a therapist not a cop… who do you call?

Do you just want to arrest kids or do you want to stop it.

Yes if a child goes a terrible thing they should be arrested.

If they are just being nuckleheads do you think they should be arrested. If they are just being loud and disruptive? Do you want those kids arrested or threatened to be arrested?

Do you think straight A kids who have never been in trouble should be brought into a room and interrogated by an SRO, without a parent present trying to get them to snitch on someone (often even if they were not a witness) having their possibility of college called to question to get them to say something ?

Because that is what SROs do, they know who are weak and who will crack, even if they were not around or involved.

No, SROs don’t mitigate issues. It’s been show time and time again there are more issues when SROs are present.

I hate to break it to you your anecdotes are meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

No, guns are not the reason why you need a cop. You need a cop because in this country, the people who you call when you've been mugged, robbed, beaten up, raped, etc. is guess what- a cop. And guess what- those things DO happen in schools as much as you don't want to admit. There are some kids who do these terrible things and yes, they should be arrested. Do you disagree? Also, cops are in the community- they know what is happening, they hear things, and they check up on it. The SROs are able to mitigate or help prevent beef from escalating at the schools. I'm sorry to break it to you but these are cops who do this type of work.

PP again. Here- President Obama explains why SROs are important: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/03/28/school-resource-officers

In 2013, we have a decade of data now.

Other failed Democratic laws.. 3 strikes your out, mandatory minimums.

Watch “the 13th” learn some history

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

I am a teacher married to a police officer. I know several SROs very well through my time in schools. I have done multiple ride-alongs because of my husband’s job. I have read “I Love a Cop”. In fact, the department gave a copy to spouses.

I want SROs. The training and time on the street does NOT negate their ability to work within a school, as evidenced by the ones I have worked with. Once you have witnessed how a good one becomes a part of the school community, you simply can’t understand why you would voluntarily take that resource away from students.

So you H has never seen a cop do something inappropriate on the job, never?

What an odd question. That isn’t the subject of our current conversation, nor can you infer that based on what I wrote above. The question at hand is whether we should have SROs, not whether cops are perfect. Of course they aren’t. Neither are teachers, for that matter. Teachers regularly make the news for inappropriate relationships with students. Should we, by your logic, keep all teachers out of school buildings because some have been proven to be wrong for the job?

So your own h has witnessed inappropriate behavior by a fellow officer? Or not? You say they aren’t perfect so he has?

I am 100% sure if a teacher had witnessed child abuser they would turn the teacher in. But cops, no, never, they can’t. They won’t get back up. I’m also 109% sure your amazing h never copped to being with a bad cop and not turning them in.

So tell me all about the wonderful things your H tells you about SROs.

How about do a “ride along” in internal affairs, because if you haven’t seen the brutality of police officers on a ride along, your h is protecting you from the truth.

Since you read I love a cop … what is the 2nd stage of being a cop? It’s the “everybody is a criminal” stage “nobody is a victim”.

Since your such an expert explain that stage to the ladies and gentlemen in the audience,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New suggestion for improving safety at school. Most of the cases I have read about shootings at school involve students obtaining a gun owned by their parents. Maybe unsecured, maybe in a safe, either way, that was the weapon(s) they used. My suggestion: if you have a teenage boy at home, do not also have a gun at home. Period. Bring it back after they move out.

Suggestion - why don't genius parents like you offer to be security since you think this is an easy fix.

I 100% don't think there is an easy fix. Obviously there is no one solution. But not having guns in the home would have prevented so many of these incidents. People like to say "oh they'd just have gotten them somewhere else" - no they wouldn't! These are kids, not criminal masterminds. Half the time they bring them to school is because they think they need them to feel safe, which is a lesson easily learned by observing dad's attitude about guns.

We can't get anywhere on gun control, fine, can we at least spread the message that if you want kids to be safer, you should remove guns from your own home? I found fourteen mass shooters since 2017 that got their gun via their parents, about half of which got them out of the gun safe. Having that driven home might make some people stop and think. If you are on this board saying anything like "we need cops in schools to protect our students from guns, what else can we possibly do" and you have a teenager and gun in your house, I'm telling you that removing it is a very tangible action you can and should take. Will this convince everyone, absolutely not, some of these kids have nightmare parents that seem to want them to commit a crime. But a lot of them don't - instead they have serious mental health problems, sometimes ones they are successfully hiding.

You are simplifying the issue. If they don't get a gun from home, they can easily get it elsewhere and they can use other weapons that are not guns and just as deadly. Our community needs to take a hard stance on violent behavior, especially in kids and not be afraid to have consequences. If these kids cannot be controlled and supervised by parents, they need to be in an institution.

Yes, much of it is mental health but its not as simple as just saying mental health. Some of these kids have been abused in and out of school and live in a culture of violence. Our society is pretty messed up right now. Adults refuse to set good examples so we cannot expect kids to behave if adults don't. We cannot even get people to do something as basic as masking.

SRO's are a good first level approach.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

I am a teacher married to a police officer. I know several SROs very well through my time in schools. I have done multiple ride-alongs because of my husband’s job. I have read “I Love a Cop”. In fact, the department gave a copy to spouses.

I want SROs. The training and time on the street does NOT negate their ability to work within a school, as evidenced by the ones I have worked with. Once you have witnessed how a good one becomes a part of the school community, you simply can’t understand why you would voluntarily take that resource away from students.

So you H has never seen a cop do something inappropriate on the job, never?

What an odd question. That isn’t the subject of our current conversation, nor can you infer that based on what I wrote above. The question at hand is whether we should have SROs, not whether cops are perfect. Of course they aren’t. Neither are teachers, for that matter. Teachers regularly make the news for inappropriate relationships with students. Should we, by your logic, keep all teachers out of school buildings because some have been proven to be wrong for the job?

So your own h has witnessed inappropriate behavior by a fellow officer? Or not? You say they aren’t perfect so he has?

I am 100% sure if a teacher had witnessed child abuser they would turn the teacher in. But cops, no, never, they can’t. They won’t get back up. I’m also 109% sure your amazing h never copped to being with a bad cop and not turning them in.

So tell me all about the wonderful things your H tells you about SROs.

How about do a “ride along” in internal affairs, because if you haven’t seen the brutality of police officers on a ride along, your h is protecting you from the truth.

Since you read I love a cop … what is the 2nd stage of being a cop? It’s the “everybody is a criminal” stage “nobody is a victim”.

Since your such an expert explain that stage to the ladies and gentlemen in the audience,

What is your solution? How about you as a parent/adult volunteer to provide security since you can do it better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

I am a teacher married to a police officer. I know several SROs very well through my time in schools. I have done multiple ride-alongs because of my husband’s job. I have read “I Love a Cop”. In fact, the department gave a copy to spouses.

I want SROs. The training and time on the street does NOT negate their ability to work within a school, as evidenced by the ones I have worked with. Once you have witnessed how a good one becomes a part of the school community, you simply can’t understand why you would voluntarily take that resource away from students.

So you H has never seen a cop do something inappropriate on the job, never?

What an odd question. That isn’t the subject of our current conversation, nor can you infer that based on what I wrote above. The question at hand is whether we should have SROs, not whether cops are perfect. Of course they aren’t. Neither are teachers, for that matter. Teachers regularly make the news for inappropriate relationships with students. Should we, by your logic, keep all teachers out of school buildings because some have been proven to be wrong for the job?

So your own h has witnessed inappropriate behavior by a fellow officer? Or not? You say they aren’t perfect so he has?

I am 100% sure if a teacher had witnessed child abuser they would turn the teacher in. But cops, no, never, they can’t. They won’t get back up. I’m also 109% sure your amazing h never copped to being with a bad cop and not turning them in.

So tell me all about the wonderful things your H tells you about SROs.

How about do a “ride along” in internal affairs, because if you haven’t seen the brutality of police officers on a ride along, your h is protecting you from the truth.

Since you read I love a cop … what is the 2nd stage of being a cop? It’s the “everybody is a criminal” stage “nobody is a victim”.

Since your such an expert explain that stage to the ladies and gentlemen in the audience,

Sigh. Your assumptions about police officers are simply absurd and paint you as an "all cops are bad" type. Sure, I'll explain the book "I Love a Cop" to the audience. Simply put: the PP took that entirely out of context. (I suppose few readers here are surprised.) The book is written as a support for law enforcement spouses. It discusses the stresses of the job, particularly the transition that police have to make from the work day to their home life. Not surprisingly, the stress of policing can lead to higher divorce rates and higher suicide rates. The book attempts to educate spouses about this and to offer avenues for support. Yes, there is reference to a heightened awareness stage for younger police, one in which they may view people through binary lenses. It's just what the book (and the previous poster) refers to it as: a stage in a progression of stages. It is an understandable byproduct of having a job that shows the best and the worst of humanity. I'll admit I hated the book when I read it. It is very doom and gloom, which wasn't easy to read when I was newly married. It did help explain, however, what my spouse goes through emotionally and psychologically. I am in awe of what he is able to handle so reasonably, rationally, and compassionately.

I will not entertain your internal affairs / brutality / protecting me from the truth comment. My husband is an honorable man and we are all fortunate that people like him want to be police officers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

No, guns are not the reason why you need a cop. You need a cop because in this country, the people who you call when you've been mugged, robbed, beaten up, raped, etc. is guess what- a cop. And guess what- those things DO happen in schools as much as you don't want to admit. There are some kids who do these terrible things and yes, they should be arrested. Do you disagree? Also, cops are in the community- they know what is happening, they hear things, and they check up on it. The SROs are able to mitigate or help prevent beef from escalating at the schools. I'm sorry to break it to you but these are cops who do this type of work.

If I’ve been attacked I call the police.

If I want to prevent an attack I hire a private security company. If a mentally I’ll child is in distress I call a therapist not a cop… who do you call?

Do you just want to arrest kids or do you want to stop it.

Yes if a child goes a terrible thing they should be arrested.

If they are just being nuckleheads do you think they should be arrested. If they are just being loud and disruptive? Do you want those kids arrested or threatened to be arrested?

Do you think straight A kids who have never been in trouble should be brought into a room and interrogated by an SRO, without a parent present trying to get them to snitch on someone (often even if they were not a witness) having their possibility of college called to question to get them to say something ?

Because that is what SROs do, they know who are weak and who will crack, even if they were not around or involved.

No, SROs don’t mitigate issues. It’s been show time and time again there are more issues when SROs are present.

I hate to break it to you your anecdotes are meaningless.

You wrote above that "if a child goes a terrible thing they should be arrested." And THAT is why we need SROs. Guess what? Some students do terrible things within schools, things that require consequences so the other students can remain safe. That's simply our current reality. The SRO is not there to handle the "loud and disruptive" or the "just being knucklehead" students. NOBODY on this thread has said that they should. SROs do NOT look for the ones who are "weak and who will crack." Perhaps some movie gave you that idea, but if you stepped foot into a real-world, functioning high school you'd see that isn't the case. Some of us who work in schools have seen people getting attacked, students and staff members. That's why we need SROs. You said yourself that you would call the police if you've been attacked.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

No, guns are not the reason why you need a cop. You need a cop because in this country, the people who you call when you've been mugged, robbed, beaten up, raped, etc. is guess what- a cop. And guess what- those things DO happen in schools as much as you don't want to admit. There are some kids who do these terrible things and yes, they should be arrested. Do you disagree? Also, cops are in the community- they know what is happening, they hear things, and they check up on it. The SROs are able to mitigate or help prevent beef from escalating at the schools. I'm sorry to break it to you but these are cops who do this type of work.

If I’ve been attacked I call the police.

If I want to prevent an attack I hire a private security company. If a mentally I’ll child is in distress I call a therapist not a cop… who do you call?

Do you just want to arrest kids or do you want to stop it.

Yes if a child goes a terrible thing they should be arrested.

If they are just being nuckleheads do you think they should be arrested. If they are just being loud and disruptive? Do you want those kids arrested or threatened to be arrested?

Do you think straight A kids who have never been in trouble should be brought into a room and interrogated by an SRO, without a parent present trying to get them to snitch on someone (often even if they were not a witness) having their possibility of college called to question to get them to say something ?

Because that is what SROs do, they know who are weak and who will crack, even if they were not around or involved.

No, SROs don’t mitigate issues. It’s been show time and time again there are more issues when SROs are present.

I hate to break it to you your anecdotes are meaningless.

You wrote above that "if a child goes a terrible thing they should be arrested." And THAT is why we need SROs. Guess what? Some students do terrible things within schools, things that require consequences so the other students can remain safe. That's simply our current reality. The SRO is not there to handle the "loud and disruptive" or the "just being knucklehead" students. NOBODY on this thread has said that they should. SROs do NOT look for the ones who are "weak and who will crack." Perhaps some movie gave you that idea, but if you stepped foot into a real-world, functioning high school you'd see that isn't the case. Some of us who work in schools have seen people getting attacked, students and staff members. That's why we need SROs. You said yourself that you would call the police if you've been attacked.

But you're acting like if there are no SROs, police are not an option when dealing with these terrible things scenarios. 911 still exists. If rapes and attempted murders are happening so frequently in school that SROs are needed on site, at the ready with their weapons, at all times, then yeah we have big problems. But if someone is using fists, 911 ought to suffice. PP was saying if you've been attacked (past tense), call the police. If you want to protect people from an attack, hire private security. Police catch criminals. They aren't bodyguards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New suggestion for improving safety at school. Most of the cases I have read about shootings at school involve students obtaining a gun owned by their parents. Maybe unsecured, maybe in a safe, either way, that was the weapon(s) they used. My suggestion: if you have a teenage boy at home, do not also have a gun at home. Period. Bring it back after they move out.

Suggestion - why don't genius parents like you offer to be security since you think this is an easy fix.

I 100% don't think there is an easy fix. Obviously there is no one solution. But not having guns in the home would have prevented so many of these incidents. People like to say "oh they'd just have gotten them somewhere else" - no they wouldn't! These are kids, not criminal masterminds. Half the time they bring them to school is because they think they need them to feel safe, which is a lesson easily learned by observing dad's attitude about guns.

We can't get anywhere on gun control, fine, can we at least spread the message that if you want kids to be safer, you should remove guns from your own home? I found fourteen mass shooters since 2017 that got their gun via their parents, about half of which got them out of the gun safe. Having that driven home might make some people stop and think. If you are on this board saying anything like "we need cops in schools to protect our students from guns, what else can we possibly do" and you have a teenager and gun in your house, I'm telling you that removing it is a very tangible action you can and should take. Will this convince everyone, absolutely not, some of these kids have nightmare parents that seem to want them to commit a crime. But a lot of them don't - instead they have serious mental health problems, sometimes ones they are successfully hiding.

You are simplifying the issue. If they don't get a gun from home, they can easily get it elsewhere and they can use other weapons that are not guns and just as deadly. Our community needs to take a hard stance on violent behavior, especially in kids and not be afraid to have consequences. If these kids cannot be controlled and supervised by parents, they need to be in an institution.

Yes, much of it is mental health but its not as simple as just saying mental health. Some of these kids have been abused in and out of school and live in a culture of violence. Our society is pretty messed up right now. Adults refuse to set good examples so we cannot expect kids to behave if adults don't. We cannot even get people to do something as basic as masking.

SRO's are a good first level approach.

Some kids could get a gun elsewhere, particularly older ones. But please don't underestimate the influence of ease and proximity. And other weapons that are not guns but just as deadly - what?? Do you think those Uvalde cops would have cowered outside as children died if the killer had a knife instead of an AR-15??