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I just want to remind readers that I’ve argued before that putting police officers into schools is a bad idea. It’s an enormous expense for taxpayers that leads to trouble: bored officers hitting on students and hassling kids for minor offenses. As for their value as a deterrent for school shooters, a School Resource Officer (SRO) might as well wear a shoot-me-first vest. (We ran a sim that proved that a shooter can take out a SRO even when he knows it’s coming.) It’s far better to train and arm teachers, on any level you can name. Regardless of what led up to this confrontation, has this incident proved my point?

 

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94 COMMENTS

  1. We have a school resource officers in our elementary and high schools here in Florida since the late 70’s and have had no problems whatsoever with school shootings or Police officers acting inappropriately The officers themselves are specially Pic And go through extensive psychiatric background checking Before they’re allowed to work In a school environment It keeps the bad apples out of the barrel so to speak. I think it’s a great program And I never had an issue with any officers and I was a bit of a troublemaker I went to the Dean plenty of times but never to the school resource officer he was there for our protection.I even have two God parents who are school resource officers In the sheriff’s department Both family men And God fearing. No problems whatsoever with our program in the in Florida

    • I can also attest.
      Although I think SROs are too expensive an option for smaller schools. They are not a solution, just a resource.

    • An often occurring problem with “God fearing” is that when they think God is too busy and not watching, they allow themselves the freedoms that men with morals do not. Priests seem to have figured out God’s schedule pretty well, as no doubt have some of the officers.

      • Those who do things such as you describe do so despite Christianity, not because of it. Someone will say I’m wrong, so be it. But someone saying I’m wrong doesn’t make it so.

        • You are correct – they do the things they do not because of the religion. But the religion does provide a convenient excuse from the morals, doesn’t it?

    • ha thats funny… bet your joking. to date none of the mass shooting used an assault rifle… no m16, m4, mac10 ozzi or any Automatic weapon (aka assault rifle or military rifle) has been legally or illegaly owned and used in these mass shootings. yes the Sports rifle (semi auto) known as ar15 was used a few times vs the thousands of illegal hand guns that no gun control can stop. a few dozen dead by legal guns vs thousands of criminals using illegal guns. Gun Control never works.5p

      and as to Faragos point. you fire the unneeded administrators and save money. then uou can afford more school programs and a few SROs… 30 teachers only need 5 admins… that was the 80s. now they have less work to do. they print work andnuse computers in every class. most work is online and can be graded without touching a paper. no filling, or copies or any admin jobs required now. other then 3-5 in mainnoffice there should not be any “administrators” other then VP and Prinicple. they need zero more employees then we had in the 80s and 5x the budgets.

      we over fund our schools, every kids should get a brand new Laptop/tablet 1k each student free of charge with at minimum free Dialup to school provided ISP. we pay 1500 per child on tech alone. average 12k per kid in the poorest schools, but have lowest scores.
      Charter schools do it at 7k on average per kid and get highest scores with almost zero admins and provide more programs in cleaner safer schools. oh yeah 99% graduate and have the highest % going to college….. all happy kids that want to go to school.

      the punk deserved what she got she refused to comply till an office was needed to remove her she struck the officer. so he delt with it. if my kids acted that way, they would have earned the beating and at least a night or 2 in jail. you obey your elders, teachers, SRO and LEOs.

      so hundred of thousands are protected and have respectful relationships with SROs and LEOs. this little twit got what she asked for. now her parents need to ground her ass for a month and take away all acess to the net other then schoolnwork.

      when my kids dont do what they told, i take their tech. when they get it done, they get their tech back. if their grades drop, they lose tech till grades are back up to no less then a B. with rare exceptions. post sexual or violent content… tech is Destroyed and get a FlipPhone with big buttens like really old people have. oh i make sure it is Bright Pink for added effect.

      lol kids are happy, grades are up, and no more meds. they learned by doing to control themselves and they get the rewards of good behavior. its not complicated. when i was kid, it was my Mongouse, tools, and my Fishing gear. same thing.

      SROs are not an issue and not a high cost. the BOE school system is the problem and lazy parents are the problem.

      • I agree with you that there are WAY too many administrators in schools these days. Not just principals and vice principals, but co-principals and co-vice-principals, and assistants for each of those. And they make big bucks, too. Firing a few of them would free up the money necessary to pay for cops in schools. And yes, cops need to be there because the teachers aren’t allowed to do anything to the few scumbag kids that start 90% of the trouble. You can thank bleeding heart libs for that stuff.

        • The public school system is enormously top-heavy. Every district, the administration probably knows one or more people in an executive position who they almost never see or interact with, works less than (sometimes a lot less than) 20 hours a week but takes home 6 figures, and got there because of political connections.

          Let’s trim the fat and see where that puts us.

        • The same goes for higher ed. Colleges and universities are top-heavy with administrators, most of whom have to compete to find something meaningful to do (I’m not kidding). As with public schools, the cause of this has been the rapid growth of governmental funds aimed at “improving” schools. The money hasn’t accomplished much improvement although it has rapidly expanded schools’ administrative overhead. The job growth in education over the past two decades or so has been in administration and not in academics. Public school districts routinely spend more than 50% (as much as 70% in some places) of their operating budgets on people who have little direct connection to the classroom. Public money did this.

      • “we over fund our schools, every kids should get a brand new Laptop/tablet 1k each student…”

        It sure looks to me (and anyone else who can read) that they damn sure didn’t spend enough on your education considering that you just demonstrated an utter lack of even the most basic use of spelling, sentence structure, capitalization, and punctuation.

        Geeze, that was downright painful to try and read…

        🙂

    • Headed here to post about that Arapahoe case.

      SRO’s are one tool in the toolbox. Agree with the above comment about small schools; you simply cannot have one or more SRO’s in every school.

      But, where there is another reason to have them there, sure, why not? They can do a lot of good in subtle ways…provided they are properly vetted, of course.

      • I can’t see them being a determent in any regard as long as they are well trained, level headed people. A few bad LEO’s make that a hard pool to recruit from. Also teachers (especially liberals) that would like to use them as security guards to hassle any students they don’t feel “safe” around seems like it could be a problem The issue of liberals escalating personal disagreements to the level of violence, especially when they can send another to do their bidding is a whole other problem.

  2. In the racial camera heavy world of today, I would not take a job with kids or minorities without an ironclad, bullet proof employee contract that had absolutely zero “out clause” for the employer. Not for any cause perceived or otherwise whatsoever.

    As I’m not likely to have one of those, I think I keep my current job.

    • Even with an ironclad contract if you get into the wrong situation and end up all over MSNBC your career could still be over…

    • Wow! Spring Break selfies make our world not racially heavy. What they didn’t photo was an SRO or LEO doing the right thing.
      This isn’t black and white. It’s who has the responsibility and training to defuse a situation. You need another teacher that could handle a teen taking on her phone. Get it? That was no big deal. She did not commit a crime.

      People white & black are taking pics & video of professional officers behaving unprofessionally. If you were never bullied by cops for being a white teen, you are in the minority.

  3. has this incident proved my point?

    The following citations were the result of a very brief Google search. The people noted below would likely be quite dead if not for SROs.

    The SRO at Araphoe saved lives. We don’t know how many, but we do know that SROs have saved many lives, and they will save more. If one SRO does something bad — and it should be noted that the girl suffered no injuries — should that denigrate the entire program? That’s like saying that since there are bad cops, we should eliminate all the police forces everywhere. Hey, if we have no police forces, we can’t have bad cops, right?

    There’s no tension between arming teachers and staff and also having armed SROs. Schools should have both.

    http://www.abc2news.com/news/region/baltimore-county/school-resource-officer-saves-the-life-of-a-middle-school-student

    http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2015/10/23/sro-hears-dads-plea-for-help-saves-child-trapped-in-dangling-car/74495200/

    http://wspa.com/2015/08/27/sro-officer-saves-choking-anderson-co-middle-school-student/

    http://www.krdo.com/news/school-resource-officer-credited-with-saving-lives-in-shooting/23510874

    http://q13fox.com/2012/12/06/king-county-school-resource-officer-saved-students-life/

  4. Our high schools have had SROs as long as I remember, but not only are they regular police, they are also trained counselors that work in the office. I doubt they suffer from boredom. And I suspect part of their salary comes out of the school budget, and the school would have been paying an employee to fill that position anyway, so it is a win-win.

  5. Our school district doesn’t have SROs. We have a district police department. It’s a bit absurd. But, I’m not sure what they do. They don’t appear to be at the kids’ elementary school, as I’ve never seen them and the couple times I’ve called they had to dispatch someone to the site (first someone parked in the fire lane and second the people upgrading the fire alert system tested it at 6:30am with music, leaving me thinking someone broke into the school).

  6. Ah, Spring Valley High School….

    Used to live not too far from there; drove by it frequently.

    Video doesn’t surprise me…from either the student’s or the SRO’s perspective. How weird is that?

  7. Man. Things must have really changed in the last 10 years or so. When I was in middle and high school and college, I was on great terms with the cops and security guys, and they all seemed to pretty nice people (except for the two private security guys who stole stuff while on duty). I’d always chat with them about stuff and junk. Heck, I almost got a job with the private security guys driving students around (they said a student wasn’t allowed to take care of other students).

  8. One person loses his temper. Maybe you think it’s minor or maybe you think it’s major. What point does it prove? That people can lose their tempers. It takes a special kind of person to deal with indignant, belligerent youth who were never taught to respect their elders. You try to deal with that day in and day out and we’ll see how well you can handle it.

    The costs of school resource officers in my district are paid for by the school district. They represent one salary in a school with hundreds of salaries. They take some of the disciplinary load off the administrators so they can focus more on educating the kids who are there to learn.

    The SROs that I know of actually manage to build relationships with some of the “problem” students, mentor them and try to guide them down a better path. I wish we didn’t need SROs, but until parents learn to do their jobs, something has to fill the gap.

    • And that video doesn’t show anything of the teacher asking the punk to get off of her phone, the teacher asking the punk to leave the classroom, or an assistant principal asking the punk to leave the classroom. I guess at that point, the punk should just be allowed to stay in the room and talk on her cell phone undeterred. The video ONLY shows the SRO dragging the punk out of the room. Quite one-sided… Of course, everyone will believe that the video shows everything.

      • Of course the kid should just do whatever they want, and if you don’t think so, you’re a “racistsexistbigothomotransislamophobe”. So say the liberals, of course.

      • Yes, because a non-violent kid who just doesn’t listen to a teacher absolutely needs to have a violent thug come attack them. I’m surprised I had to scroll so far down the comments before I saw the statist “SUBMIT OR DIE!” comments.

        • She made her choice. You can go the easy way or the hard way.
          How would you deal with her? When she started swinging on you, what then?
          Everybody that complains about excessive use of force fail to explain how they would have gotten the job done.

        • Perhaps the officer could use a bit more training in dealing with uncooperative arrestees. A great deal of LEO training involves how to stop yourself from beating the living snot out of some amoral thug who desperately needs it.

        • Cause that “non violent” kid had the absolute right, in pubes land, to disrupt the educational day of all the other non asshole kids in the class.

          And because of voters like pubes the school staff has no legal option other than to call a cop for a disruptive kid.

          That’s right, boys and girls, if a kid refuses to cooperate staff has no real option than to call cops, or let the kid run wild. Heck of a system. Enabled by folks like pubes.

        • I will never understand how 2A supporters can rationally support state violence against the non-violent.

      • Nor does it show the kid punching the officer in the face, which the sheriff said they had video of. Before they fired the guy. Hard to say if it was an overreaction or not without seeing the whole thing.

  9. We had SROs in my high school and they were great. I’m not going to judge all SROs on one incident. And shit, I’m not even judging this SRO either until I know all the details. Kids nowadays are rude, disrespectful, entitled, snot nosed punks. Some of them deserve a good beating.

    • So you support “contempt of cop” beatings / executions? It doesn’t matter what the kid said, she was non-violent and sitting at a desk – there was absolutely no reason to attack her.

      • Sure, but he didn’t attack her. After she refused to move, be took her wrist, and she immediately began fighting him, thrashing around like crazy, which is what landed her on the floor. He then moved her away from the fallen desks and other students. He didn’t throw her, he began dragging her by the belt, and as she continued fighting she escaped his grip. (Hint, watch his arms not follow through.) He then cuffed her which– as she was an out-of-control, resisting, fighting person– she totally deserved. At no time did he strike her. His voice never raised above a stern, commanding tone. She was completely unhurt at the end of the incident.

        This is an absolute non-story, except he’s a white cop and she’s a black girl, and the usual suspects are on board the racial greivance train.

  10. Where I live the SRO’s placed in the schools by the local PD seem to be officers “put out to pasture”. That, or losers. One officer was fired after viewing pornography on a school computer and his replacement? Fired for the exact same thing not six months later.

    This being said, I think that the idea that SRO’s are a “bad idea” is a bit of a blanket statement. Like others have said, they are but one tool in the toolbox.

  11. I’m running the scenario in my head and I can’t really think of what would have been the right course of action as the Officer. The student needed to be removed from the classroom but won’t get out of her desk. So just let her have her way? I’m think just dragging the desk out of the room maybe?

    • Kid knew the cameras were rolling and she was shooting for an academy award.

      When (not if) she winds up in prison, she’ll get treated the same way if she’s insubordinate. So she may as well get used to it.

  12. I’m not sure the problems you mention with SROs are statistically a big deal, RF. But you fail to see the biggest problem with having cops in the school: it sends a constant, daily subconscious message to kids that the police are there to protect them, reinforcing the attitude that safety and security is “somebody else’s problem” (specifically, some governmental authority). Do you think kids exposed to that every day for years are more or less likely to step up and take personal responsibility for their own protection later in life? Or might they adopt the common (and very mistaken) idea that calling the police always results in an immediate response? It’s far, far better for them to see teachers and staff members – ordinary citizens – carrying guns and taking responsibility for themselves and those under their care.

  13. What pray tell, would you have done RF ? Say pretty please. She struck him and he reacted. I went to school in St Louis, and knew girls that carried knives in their purse. Some of these young ladies would fight you like a man, so pretty please won’t work. Also, I would rather wrestle around on the floor, rather than using mace.Been there, done that ( prisoner” forced cell removal “, as a Correctional Officer) it stays in the air and irritates eyes and lung’s. The idea is to use enough force , and only that force, to get them restrained , and removed.

    • Did you watch the video? Maybe she hit him, but there’s a laptop in the way when this supposedly happens. So we have to go on the cop’s word that she hit him – and we all know how trustworthy they are.

  14. Audio and video in ALL classrooms and hallways from open to close. Just so there is no mistake NO video recorders in locker rooms and restrooms.
    No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

  15. How is Utah so enlightened in this area? It’s not the most pro gun state, as it requires a permit for open or concealed carry, but it is fantastic for permit holders.

  16. I don’t see a problem. SRO or not. Some punk-ass brat hits me, he/she is not getting up for a while. That is restraint, because if an adult does it, they get shot.

  17. I couldn’t disagree with this article more… I’m very disappointed this sort of sentiment is being published here. I know many an SRO here in Connecticut and applaud all of them for keeping our schools safe and more importantly implementing a positive relationship between youth and the police that is beneficial to the community. No I do not feel SROs are necessary or even beneficial to all schools but there are many a school where they are an absolute asset to the students and staff alike as well as the community. Addressing criminal activity and problem behavior at a younger age is very beneficial to deter such activity in the future and having an officer directly within a school daily is a great way to do so. Ok stepping off my offended soapbox.

  18. Take away the cop for a second, and re-imagine the situation as one where the police don’t deal with these issues. You’re a teacher who has some teen in your class who is disrupting the whole room making it impossible for the other students to learn. Students who might have a chance at graduating, getting to college or a job, etc. This student won’t leave. Some administrator, also armed with a liberal arts degree, comes in and also can’t get the disruptive student to leave. No one is learning anything except that anyone can do whatever they want.

    How does that situation, and the many sure to follow, get resolved?

    • “How does that situation, and the many sure to follow, get resolved?”

      You grab the desk and drag it out into the hall (or, depending on what they’re doing, just ignore them) and then after class they get a detention / suspension / expulsion. It’s happened plenty of times over the years without the “need” to attack students like a steroid abusing gorilla.

      • I’m fine with that idea. I doubt you’ll find a teacher or administrator in that school who will do it, though (the desk dragging). As to expelling her after the fact? Sure… but keep in mind that the media is already bringing up calls of racism at the involved school because it expels too many black kids. So they’re probably afraid to do that too.

        When I was young there was a cop at school often but I don’t remember ever seeing him getting involved in this sort of thing. The school had security that grabbed kids. But then they’re school employees and oh, the liability…

    • The same way it was managed for decades before SROs, and in the many countries that don’t use them. Let’s not start pretending that school discipline is an unmanageable issue without the constant intervention of the criminal justice system – we know that it just isn’t so.

      So now, instead of 20 students having their class disrupted for 10 minutes, we have all that AND two students with criminal records that will follow THEM for the rest of their lives, not to mention attorneys fees, fines, possibly even jail time. Wouldn’t THAT be a wonderful augmentation of the educational experience: learn to be a criminal direct from the criminals themselves.

      No, RF has it right on this one.

      • re: the point of the article, I would contend that the misuse of SROs does not mean they are a bad idea unless we accept that their very presence must be misused… which is sad.

        As to decades ago in the US, you would find a very different classroom, teachers and students today than back then. That’s what I was getting at in my comment, which was not to suggest that this is a good end to the scenario; just that I’m not sure there is a realistic resolution to the problem even if you take cops out of the classrooms.

    • A famous old woman once said, “start as you mean to go.” A teacher this fall first day had pockets to the right of her board. If the kids wanted to be marked present their phones were placed there for the duration of the class. Let’s say that one teen didn’t want to adhere. Have said teen expelled from class. That one
      can’t come back until that choose to adhere.
      Best solution don’t be a boring teacher. Have a class that other students want to come to. Respect your students day one. Look them in the eye and find out what they are interested in. Anyone acts up have them lead the exercise or have them prepare to lead tomorrow’s. Not in a sarcastic way but actually. Tell them why they are here and what your goals are for them. Tell them that in here you can make mistakes. That makes you brave.
      Get the idea? Doesn’t sound like many teachers. Also if the teacher views these students with contempt or feels they will never amount to anything then that’s a self fulfilling prophecy. They need the same respect as anyone. They need to earn it you say. Yes but they are young inside. Expecting them to act their age is ridiculous. Having an expectation that they will is effective.

      I never hear anyone talk about our poor desperately poor Appalachian brothers and sisters. Don’t they matter? They do abuse alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, have poor diets, poor health, are belligerent and can be very dangerous. They abuse their spouses and children and have huge rates of unwed pregnancies and unemployment. They have poor job choices and limited educations.

      They don’t blame the White man because they think they may be rich one day. (Look this up.) Their jobs were sold off shore for a profit. The American Dream is just that.
      Perhaps friends, we’re all in this together.

  19. She looks like she is reaching down into her pocket when he grabs that arm. Then she swings at his face with the free hand that he can’t see. For all he knew she had retrieved whatever she was reaching for and was assaulting him with it. Good slam.

  20. That makes a lot of sense. To Libertarians, that is. When it comes to grown-ups, I would guess that the great majority of pro-gun parents with school-aged kids are thankful for their school’s SRO. I.O.W., being anti-SRO is just poor politics, regardless of your philosophical beliefs.

    • Damn us libertarians, being against beating children for saying “no” to a superior human (you can tell he’s superior by the government issues uniform)! The only way we can have freedom is if we all submit to the whims of violent psychopaths or die!

      • Publius,

        I fancy myself as embracing Libertarian philosophy. And I abhor over-the-top reactions from police in response to “contempt of cop”.

        Having said all that, please recognize the libertarian principle of voluntarily working together to achieve a common goal. In this case students and school staff were voluntarily working together so that students could learn the subject matter of that class. And the disruptive student had volunteered to participate with that group up to that point throughout the school year. For whatever reason that day the disruptive student decided that she wasn’t going to participate with the group. That being the case, she should have kindly removed herself from the group with which she used to participate.

        It was wrong for that disruptive student to remain in the classroom. She broke the social contract to participate in the learning process. That being the case, she had no right to interfere with the voluntary association of others who were working together to learn. When additional people insisted that the disruptive student leave, their insistence was righteous as well as using the minimum amount of force necessary to forcibly remove her.

        Did the school resource officer overreact? Perhaps. I like the “drag her and the desk outside” approach myself. We can certainly argue all day about whether something was overreaction. What we should not argue about is that a person has a right to say “no” when they are breaking the terms of a voluntary association with others. Whether that person who is breaking the terms of their voluntary association is talking to a school resource officer or the other members of the voluntary association doesn’t matter.

  21. A pain compliance joint lock could easily bring her out of her chair and be used to escort her out of class without a beat down. Another case of contempt of COP.

    When I was in school we did not have SROs. In such a case back then, two larger male teachers or our security guys would have just picked her up (possibly desk and all) and walked out of the class with her kicking and screaming.

    I don’t like the idea of COPs in school, because we end up criminalizing all bad behavior and ruining lives.

    I got in lots of fights in school because I was small and would not knuckle under to bullies. If we had SROs back then, I’d likely be in jail rather than a reasonably successful engineer.

    • “Beat down”? What “beat down”? The girl was uninjured. She flopped out of her desk/chair of her own accord. The officer had nothing to do with her desk/chair overturning.

        • The officer didn’t flip the chair. The girl did that herself. The SRO had absolutely no leverage to flip the desk/chair violently like that. Only the girl could do that herself.

  22. I graduated from Spring Valley (the school where all this happened) in 2010, and I can attest that SROs are absolutely required for that school to function correctly. My very first day of freshman year, two girls got into a fist fight and they both got hauled away in the paddywagon. Without an SRO, or in SVHS’ case 2, that school would be downright dangerous. There would be administrators and teachers breaking up fights constantly, and likely hurting themselves in the process.

  23. Our daughter went to a “magnet” high school. It had SRO’s and regular police had to constantly make visits as well. Outside of the “magnet” students the rest was gang-related chaos. Frequent fights, known hard drug dealing street a couple of blocks away, lockdowns due to gunshots in the drug and gang infested neighborhood on one side of the school. Occasionally the regular police would have to taser one of the bangers. Thankfully the gang types did not hassle the “magnet” class students. Never heard of one incident. Maybe the presence of the SRO’s kept that from happening. Don’t know. Still wish that a couple of the teachers could have been armed as well. The retired army officer who ran the JROTC program and a couple of the large gym teachers were high on that list. Then again, a couple of the teachers were crazy in their own right. One young woman teacher lost it right in front of the class and had to be escorted out herself, never to return. Sounds like this high school was the same way. When I was in high school, the male gym teachers broke up the fights, and nobody dared to hit them. Part was out of respect; most was out of fear. I have no doubt in that era the gym teacher would have finished the fight on his terms.

  24. RF, I agree that arming teachers and staff is a good idea and that SROs are expensive. But I take issue with the way you are arguing your point. You are taking the same approach the anti-gunners do: You take isolated incidents and generalize them as the rule. And like the antis, it’s all too clear that you’re doing it to push an agenda. In the antis case, it’s that no one should be armed. In your case, it is that teachers and staff should be armed. I don’t think that editorial tactic is worthy of the POTG and I don’t think it convinces anyone.

    I believe that like most cops, most SROs do their jobs very well. Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples. There are also bad teachers and staff, BTW. When the first authorized staff carrier harrasses a kid, and it will happen, are you then going to be fair and argue that arming staff was not a good idea after all? I doubt it.

    As for the “shoot me first” concept, these school shooters are not trained terrorists who think in those terms. They are cowards. We have seen evidence, albeit anecdotal, that these school shooters are deterred by even the possibility of armed defenders.

    • JohnF,

      Run-of-the-mill spree killers may not have the where-with-all to incapacitate a school resource officer before embarking on their killing spree. However, a terrorist may very well have the where-with-all to do just that.

      In my mind armed parents, staff, and school resource officers are armed to stop any attacker, whether the attacker is a stalker, spree killer, sociopath, or terrorist. That being the case, I can see some scenarios where an attacker would specifically seek out and try to incapacitate a school resource officer first.

      Why not have both armed parents/staff and school resource officers if budget allows?

  25. I don’t know what happened before the video so I am not going to pass judgement on the SRO. However, the fact that an SRO was present certainly escalated this situation to the point of violence. The nature of the LEO’s training insures that either a person complies 100% or there is a violent result for even the most minor violation. These days Police have the attitude of “full compliance or else” and “arrest them all and let the judge sort them out”. Should those methods be used in a school setting? Let me answer that for you, no.

    However, with that being said, the blame for this incident rests squarely on the parents of this child. Why does this kid think it is OK to act out in and be such a disruption? Because of the parents.

  26. SROs in school aren’t the problem. It’s the disrespectful, unruly, entitlement-mentality, racially and/or ideologically propagandized students that are the problem.

    The student openly defied three escalating levels of authority, and then physically resisted a lawful attempt to effect a lawful arrest. She should have been charged with assaulting a police officer.

    I wouldn’t take his job in a million years, for all the money in the world.

  27. When you act like an ass you get treated as such. That’s reality whether in school or outside of school. The officer was elbowed by the kid when he attempted to remove her from the chair. Here’s the secret-don’t tell anyone….don’t resist and you won’t get slammed.

  28. Train and arm the teachers. My wife is a teacher and agrees. If students did not know which teachers were armed it prevent many a shooting. At the same time they (teachers) should be screened to make sure they will not crack and or freak out under pressure. IE like that officer did in the story above. Power hungry hot tempered officers should not be in classrooms with children. Yes… than means any officer going into a school should be screened… and screened again… and again.

  29. In this instance Robert F. is wrong. Resource officers play an important role in school safety. Many of the schools here in the Pittsburgh area have Juvenile Probation Officers in the school, as well as security. And it’s needed considering what is going on in the inner city schools.

  30. The purpose of a school is to prepare students for real life conditions. By getting jail-like training in school, the transition to real life will be that much smoother…

  31. Robert – You’re making the same argument against SRO’s that the antis make against guns. “X caused one bad incident, so we should get rid of X.” SRO’s serve a lot of functions in schools. They aren’t there just to protect against a mass shooter. I do think that schools are tending to overuse the SRO. They shouldn’t be using them to remove a disruptive student when that student isn’t breaking a law. We need to scale back the SRO’s job so that they are only involved with actual law enforcement matters, and the school needs to handle routine student discipline. Nothing presented here makes the case for doing away with SRO’s though, in my opinion.

  32. Robert’s anti cop bias rears it’s head again. You ought to wait for all the evidence to come in before jumping to conclusions. The innocent nonviolent student may have attacked the SRO first. My guess is that is the real story.

    See the nbcnews.com story inked on Drudge.

      • Robert, we are not talking about those stories, we are talking about this one. You jumped to an unfounded conclusion based on personal bias.

        Glenn Reynolds has a running series of women teachers committing statutory rape titled “teach women not to rape.” Should we do away with women teachers along with the SROs?

        • We’re talking about SROs in general. See: headline. Generally speaking, I think it’s a bad idea. The risks of an SRO going rogue are higher than the risk of a mass shooter. Especially if [some] teachers are armed.

  33. Yep-I don’t see a problem here. My kids(who both graduated) had a SRO. NO problems and they were supported by the community. Also NOT allowed to have cell phones out EVER. Harsh language didn’t work, asking her to leave didn’t work and this was the only result possible. When I was in high school a long time ago male teachers handled the unruly-but I don’t remember any guns. WE DID have race riots 3 out of 4 years and one kid got stabbed. Lots of po-leece around then. This was 45 years ago so it ain’t a new problem…THIS sure doesn’t warrant the freakin’ FBI getting involved.

  34. My standard is pretty simple. No police employee involvement until or unless a criminal statute has been violated. If you can’t handle unruly or disrespectful kids, don’t get a job that requires you to handle unruly or disrespectful kids. The less the state is involved in our lives, the better.

    • Interesting… YOUR child wouldn’the be in that situation. BUT if he had ‘thrown her’ then you and he would have had issues. There’s the problem. Everyone thinks their child is a perfect little specimen and can do no wrong. If your child ‘would never be in a situation like that’ then you have nothing to say against the officer regarding this situation. If your child is a punk and IS in a situation like that, you also have nothing to say against him. If you were to raise a punk, put her in public school and let her disrupt class, SOMEONE is going to deal with that problem. If it’s not the parent, the teachers, or the administrators, it’ll be the police. If the police don’t get her to straighten up, it might just be a law abiding citizen exercising their Constitutional rights later on. Period.

      They threw this guy under the bus for political correctness, plain and simple..

      • My daughter is a straight A student and respects authority and you are in no position to judge my daughter.

        Next… many officers of the law are out of control… as many of the videos on youtube demonstrate every day. This guy could easily overpower her as demonstrated by this throwing her across the room. Sorry he does not have the right to do this even if she struck him. He could have easily picked her out of the seat, put her against the wall at his back and handcuffed her. Instead he decided to show her what a big tough guy he is and throw her across the room. Cops need to be a special breed to deal with all the shit they do and not over react. Don’t get me wrong… there are many good cops. I have family who are cops (state troopers) and friends who are town cops. They even admit… there are bad seeds in every force. Hey you are entitled to your opinion and so am I.

  35. SROs were present at both school systems that my two daughters attended and they were okay. The SROs were rotating Deputy Sheriffs so they were not permanently assigned to the task. I suppose the SROs are better than plastic gun free zone signs, but it would be better if some of the faculty was armed.
    The big problem that I see in this incident is that the school faculty tends to be trained to deal with obstinate students where the SROs are really not. The Principal normally would be involved in a situation as this. The SRO should have called and waited for faculty assistance.

    • The Principal normally would be involved in a situation as this. The SRO should have called and waited for faculty assistance.

      The principal had already been called. The student defied him, after defying the teacher. Only then did the principal summon the SRO.

  36. Kids came home today talking about other students celebrating the win. They were created a list of things they can now do without any consequences.

    Stealing, cheating, and being disruptive are the three everyone is most excited about. There will no longer be ramifications for anyone’s actions and best of all if a teacher flunks a student that teacher will have to deal with that student another year so it is almost a blackmail situation there.

  37. This discussion has kind of gone off the rails because it combined three very different issues.

    1. Are SRO’s worth the expense? Sometimes. I really like forward deployment. Every kid should know, respect and learn how to interact with law enforcement, and yes be friends with a cop (really, we are on the same side). High schools and large middle schools can usually be cost justified. Elementary schools are often just too small. Students are less volatile and risks are generally smaller (Sandy Hook excepted).

    2. Are SRO’s properly selected and trained? Sometimes, obviously not always. It takes the right personality to be an SRO just like being a teacher or a juvenile officer. The guy in the video lost it; wrong guy, wrong training and wrong job assignment.

    3. Should teachers and staff be allowed to conceal carry? Damn right! The gun in the hand beats the cop down the hall every time. Lots of posts and research verifies this. Problem is most school boards, administrators and their insurers are SCARED to allow it and are ignorant of firearms and their correct use. I have interviewed 300 pound football coaches who fear being jumped by their students and losing the firearm. Consequently students continue to be at risk for Sandy Hook type attacks. I won’t even mention Beslan.

    The best answer is both SRO’s and a few trained and armed teachers and staff. You can read Dr. J. Eric Dietz’s Purdue study on active shooter mitigation here:

    http://www.researchgate.net/publication/272747940_Mitigating_Active_Shooter_Impact_Analysis_for_Policy_Options_Based_on_AgentComputer_Based_Modeling

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