“In a country where we’re talking about arming teachers, Baltimore has decided to disarm the police. It’s crazy.” That’s the reaction of Sgt. Clyde Boatwright, president of Baltimore’s school police union, after the Maryland house of delegates couldn’t manage to agree that police officers should be armed while patrolling the Charm City’s schools. “In a city with as much crime and violence, I’m deeply saddened to know that Baltimore City students won’t have the same protections that every other K-12 student in the state of Maryland has” . . .
Baltimore, which appears near the top of just about every most dangerous cities list, employs a special police force to ensure school safety rather than using BPD cops. They’re allowed to pack heat while patrolling outside school buildings or in the immediate area, but when it’s time to stroll the hallways or watch over the cafeteria as kids try to find something edible in their federally-approved lunches, they have to disarm. It’s the only Maryland district that takes guns out of the hands of school resource officers by force of law.
In other districts, members of the traditional police force provide security at schools and don’t have special rules about carrying firearms inside buildings.
The city school board asked for the legislation to bring school police officers’ practices in line with their counterparts around the state.
The problem is that some of the state’s delegates and local parents felt the district didn’t kowtow enough before proposing the bill. Proponents hadn’t trudged up to Annapolis to kiss the necessary legislative backsides in the capital before trying to get the necessary authorization.
Shanaysha Sauls, city school board president, said the board “certainly made a misstep by not having an open conversation before we introduced the legislation.”
It seems that in the Old Line State, unless you genuflect sufficiently before the right people, it doesn’t matter how important or beneficial your cause may be. Student safety? No dice. Stopping another aspiring Adam Lanza? Not good enough. So when it became obvious that there weren’t enough votes to pass the bill, they tabled it for the year.
Del. Mary Washington, who did not support the legislation, noted that the decision to table was unanimous.
“There were so many unanswered questions, and there wasn’t enough data provided to us to take action,” she said. “Rather than winning a particular vote, what was more important was to have a comprehensive policy that would really make a difference in the lives of our students.”
Questions? Data? How much data will Del. Washington need if and when a school shooting happens in her state’s largest city? The answer, of course, is none. She and the rest of the anti-gun opposition will then simply fall into line, demanding that something be done to improve the safety the the city’s schools. Something she and her simpering cronies have now further compromised.
It’s always been gospel among members of the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex that the only people with the sufficient temperament and training who can be trusted with carrying a firearm in a civil society are the police. Only now, in the hoplophobic fairyland that is Maryland, not even the boys in blue are trustworthy enough.
So for the foreseeable future, Baltimore’s schools will be patrolled by good guys without guns whose only option for responding to the threat of bad guys with guns will be…Tasers, a night stick, and maybe some very harsh language.