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Police in schools: Why are they there?


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By Greg Botelho and Ralph Ellis, CNN

Tens of thousands of them patrol American schools every day. They are law enforcers. They are mediators. They are educators.

This week, a school resource officer in Columbia, South Carolina, was captured on a video that’s been replayed across the nation. The video shows him forcefully yanking down a 16-year-old female student, then flinging her across the floor before her arrest. The student allegedly refused to leave her desk.

Richland County sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields has been fired.

About 43 percent of all U.S. public schools — including 63 percent of middle and 64 percent of high schools — had such officers on their grounds during the 2013-14 school year, the National Center for Education Statistics noted in May. This includes more than 46,000 full-time and 36,000 part-time officers.

School resource officers, or SROs, supervise lunchrooms, coach sports, promote drug and alcohol awareness and become confidants to teens who might have never thought they’d befriend a police officer. SROs may build relationships at a key time in many young people’s lives.

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Comments (20)
  1. Blue Jeans says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Didn’t we have an officer here at the high school and weren’t there problems with that? Is there another officer there now?

  2. don't give up says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    They are there to control excessively unruly and undisciplined so called students. Duh?

  3. Hmmm... says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Who controls excessively unruly and undisciplined so called ‘Peace’ officers?

    I think this most recent situation is a lose-lose situation. The ‘kid’ was being a brat…the officer had been accused of unreasonable aggressive force more than once.

    Seems there should be a way of blocking cell phone/internet signals within classrooms.

  4. Justice says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Typical liberal BS article of zero value. Watch the recent video of the High School Principal at Florin High in Sac and see a 200-250 pound out of control teenage thug fighting other students grab the Principal and pick him up and body slam him. The schools are not safe places anymore for staff or students at most inner-city schools where fights are becoming very violent and very often. There is a need for security at all schools. Bad officers get weeded out but security needs don’t. There should be more security in schools, not less.

  5. Hmmm... says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Justice…is that like “more guns, not less”, more psych meds, not less; more tax breaks for corporations, not less; more legislation blocking our right to know what’s in our food; more corporate money in politics, not less?

    Maybe the cop shoulda just tazed the kid…huh?

  6. Justice says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Kind of like more liberals more failures, more crime, more welfare, more illegal immigration, more homeless, more poverty, more not working, more racial riots, more scandals, more attacks on the Constitution, more violence, more high school drop outs, more world instability, More ISIS, more terrorism, more not being able to afford college, more using drugs, more on the SSI system, more misery, etc. etc. “More” IS the key word and liberals only increase it.

  7. Garry Bowen says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Ignoring “Justice”, as obviously a ‘conservative’ viewpoint as if shielding one side of the aisle via merely blaming the other (what else is new ?) will actually accomplish something – which it hasn’t so far. . .

    Going by the question in the title, my own experience at STHS (I happen to be a ‘Viking’, so am no stranger). . .I arrived at the high school for a scheduled appointment with the Principal, only to be confronted “at the curb” by the stationed officer: where was I going (?), why was I there (?), then physically led to the office inside to retrieve a ‘pass’ – OK so far ! – but to have that officer wait to escort me the 20-feet to the Principal’s office was a bit over-the-top, which I suspect is going-on with duties like this at schools, as some in unearned positions of authority take themselves & their duties way too seriously. . .but which are overlooked as justified, given the current growing news reports. . . inevitably leading to questions as to the maturity of both sides in this case – such as, why was someone already renowned for trouble associated with this school & this situation (?). . .

    A certain recipe not to be repeated, but almost always is quite often now. . . no one takes responsibility for the fact that a wrong person was designated to be an ‘enforcer’

    That is decidedly the wrong role, as public safety is not actually about “enforcement”, it’s about making people feel secure. . .what about episodes like this suggest “secure” ?

  8. Hmmm... says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Riiggghht

  9. Kits Carson says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Hmmm: Stop making excuses for bad, thug like behavior.

  10. Hmmm... says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Et tu, Brute?

    Did you even read my post?

    You were the one defending the cops ‘thug-like’ behavior. I stated clearly the kid was being a brat.
    Sheesh…here we go again, a Right Winger accusing lefties of the very thing they are doing. Can’t be much more obvious. Hell, even Stevie Wonder could see what you just did.

  11. nature bats last says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Hmmm,

    kitty litter and justanass are doing what they do best FINGER POINTING!!!!
    Thats just for you kitty litter

    just think, If everyone was packing heat they would all have had a shoot out, been killed and then all the politicians and the nra could say prayers for them. That would have fixed everything!!!

  12. Kits Carson says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    “Maybe the cop shoulda just tazed the kid…huh?”

    That’s your comment I was referring to.
    I’m not condoning this cops reactions and like Justice said, the bad ones can be weeded out. I just saw where a punk, thug kid took a 63yr old teacher to the ground in a headlock because the teacher took his phone away. It was probably his free Obama phone. That’s a kid that could use a good tazing.

  13. Dogula says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Bats, we know you think that your constant repetition of the phrase, “finger pointing” is clever, but truly, it isn’t. I’d bet that even your supporters here are tired of seeing it over and over and over again.
    you need a new tag line. That one’s done.

  14. Robin Smith says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    When I was in school..the worst thing that could possibly happen was for the school to have to call my parents for any reason.

    Talk back to or refuse an order by a teacher?? I don’t know what kind of parents you had but mine were strict about our behavior.

    It’s called DETENTION…after school….weekends

    I think we should pay the kids to go to school and do work at the school for credit and money…they start bringing home a paycheck their attitude will change and so will their parents’

  15. reloman says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    hmm, there are systems that will do that. Hotels are treying to install them so that the only internet that gets through are their wifi, Big chains like Marriot are behind that.

  16. nature bats last says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Ok dog, heres something that gets said all the time but you never seem to say how redundant it is, maybe it a selective issue. Liberal moonbeam senile ol goat, government is the problem bla bla bla bla.

    So finger pointer, how old is the earth?

  17. Robin Smith says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    Bats…Dog…there has to be some relevance to the subject…policing the schools…however you two have lost me here???

    I say the earth is a trillion years old!

  18. fromform says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    earth’s age is central to much dogmatic regime

  19. Hmmm... says - Posted: October 29, 2015

    @Relo- thanks, I thought I had heard about something like that.

    Kits…I was being facetious about tazing the kid..