The School Resource Officer program is alive again—after now six years—at some of Tucson Unified and Amphitheater school districts’ middle and high school campuses. Officers started rolling back into eight facilities today.
The resurrection of the program concerned a lot of people, sparking protests over how SROs would deal with enforcement of Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070—would they be allowed to interrogate a student over his or her immigration status?
There was a lot of back and forth on the deal between Tucson Police Department and the two school districts. Before it was finalized, the Tucson City Council ordered to add a clause in the contracts specifying that an officer could not look into students’ immigration status.
A few weeks ago, there was a protest outside the City Hall, before the City Council approved the amended deal—the one mentioned at the meeting concerned TUSD. Now, we know that cops can’t interrogate anyone on their status, unless vital to a criminal investigation or with a parent, guardian or attorney present.
Still, some people were unhappy that cops were being allowed back in the school. At the council meeting that Tuesday evening, some argued the funds—$2.2 million—should be invested in other educational areas.
Talking about SB 1070, last month, Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villaseñor announced the department would scale back on immigration status checks during arrests—only people suspected of threatening national security, having gang affiliations and/or previous felony convictions would be asked about their status.
The City Council is expected to look into how TPD has been enforcing SB 1070. At the last meeting I attended, the council members said they’d discuss that in the beginning of 2015. The first meeting of the year is today, but I didn’t see anything related to SB 1070 on the agenda.
We’ll see where that goes.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2015.
It’s amazing that this entire sub-culture exists that believes that they have the right to move to whatever country they want without any regard to the wishes of the host country.
You must mean the sub-culture of the police themselves because there are no subcultures mentioned here other than that one. Policing and schooling are and should be “countries” far apart. While they have ostensibly been placed in the schools as “relationship builders” I have real questions about who the police will be building relationships with. On the face of it, it certainly seems like another part of the “use your leftover military hardware by offering it to municipalities, universities, etc.”–a thoughtless use of machinery that is meant for military conflict–as if that original meaning could be removed from its ultimate use. I fear that using police to “build relationships” is more to scare the kids, or to ignore (willfully) WHY police may be very scary to kids in south side neighborhoods than it is to protect them (or their teachers). Particularly at this time of race-based police killings of youth of color, to pretend that this is some kind of kumbayah effort really begs a reality check. That said, there IS a need in schools for counselors and others who actually DO specialize in building relationships. And if we had more counselors on school grounds, there might well be very positive results in behavior changes among students. There just aren’t any $ 2.2 million dollar grants to put them there.
Hold the parents accountable, and the students next. That would be a good start.
Bett Putnam Hidalgo is missing the point. Police use of deadly force is NOT a race issue. It is a sad fact that the police are trained to use deadly force against almost any threat. How many times have you seen a news story about the police shooting a person who had no weapon? The police will shoot you; black, white, brown it makes no difference. Police training must be adjusted so that fire arms are the last resort.
LaRaza and other terrorists types don’t wont police around to stop their illegal activities.
Anyone opposed to this is just anti-police and pro-criminal. We had cops in the schools at flowing wells in the 80’s and THAT school was safer than Mayberry. The lousy schools that didn’t have cops were full of gang-bangers. Those are facts I was at both places. The cops are not there to suck up and be friends with the kids they are armed guards and security personnel there to stop a mass shooting or gang activity. If you don’t like the police then just never call them and see how that works out for you.
Exactly, Gandalf. And people who still need to be trained that firearms are the last resort should not be in our schools, regardless of what Mr. Sternberg experienced. Kids are not criminals and they shouldn’t be treated as if they were instars of criminals just because they live in a particular neighborhood or go to a particular school. But then, I work in an elementary school, and I do know teachers and others in middle and high schools who feel a need for more security personnel around. I don’t discount their concerns, I just think that police are not the people to be doing this job. And incidentally, I was specifically told that “relationship building” is their primary job–not quite sucking up to the kids but still seemingly trying to ignore the implications of that blue uniform…..
KIds are not criminals? Yea right , I also worked in a high school and that’s absurd. Gangs, drug dealing, and violence and common in Tucson. The idea that kids are innocent is a fantasy. Cops serve a purpose and school shootings perpetrated by kids are much more common than they were years ago. There has never been a shooting by a police officer of a student in Tucson at a school but there have been shootings and gun violence by students. That is a fact.
O! If the NON citizens from Mexico that are here stealing an education for their children don’t like the police being in the schools then they can get the !#@$ out of America and go back across the border and stay there because trespassers don’t get a say in our policies.