SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The State of California passed a bill removing requirements for schools to report threats against school officials to law enforcement, which seems amazing since it was approved a few days after 19 students and two teachers were gunned down in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
SB-1273 was passed by the California State Senate last Thursday, two days after the Uvalde massacre. Lawmakers claim that minority students are disproportionately reported to authorities for violent behavior. Therefore, the bill is an attempt at racial equity, according to the Post Millennial.
Instead of mandatory reporting of violent behavioral issues to law enforcement, school officials will now have the option to deal with them internally; a model that failed miserably in Florida and led to the Parkland shooting massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, which saw 17 people murdered and another 17 injured.
The bill repeals a provision of existing law that requires that “whenever any employee of a school district or county superintendent of schools is attacked, assaulted, or physically threatened by any pupil, the employee and any person under whose direction or supervision the employee is employed who has knowledge of the incident are required to promptly report the incident to specified law enforcement authorities.”
Hence, SB-1273 makes reporting under the circumstances optional, Fox Metro News reported.
One outspoken State Senator, Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore), took to the Senate floor to voice her opposition and deep concern over the repeal, Breitbart reported.
“This is a bill that no longer requires schools to notify law enforcement if a student attacks or assaults someone on campus or makes a threat on campus,” she said.
Melendez even reminded her colleagues that internal resolution of behavioral issues had deadly consequences in Florida due to the Obama administration’s PROMISE program, which discouraged reporting assaults and threats by minority students to law enforcement.
“I will remind you,” she said during her words of warning, “[of the] 2018 Stoneman Douglas shooting at the school in which 17 people were killed by a fellow student, Nikolas Cruz. Nikolas Cruz had behavioral issues since middle school. … The school decided they would use alternative means to deal with Nikolas Cruz’s behavioral issues. The end result was that he killed 17 people.”
The Republican lawmaker wasn’t finished with her admonition. She added, “We have seen an increase in violence at our schools, and in too many cases, there are instances where a school and parents or caregivers try to intervene … and it doesn’t work. The end result is that other people’s children die because of it.”
In a closing remark, Melendez rebuked her cohorts while trying to appeal to fellow parents.
“This bill today, you are asking for a repeat of Stoneman Douglas across the state of California, and I will not sit back and say nothing because I have kids in school. If you have kids in school, you better darn well pay attention to this.”
Proponents claim the bill will “protect students from unnecessary interactions with law enforcement.”
According to FMN, Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Los Angeles) who introduced the bill, said, “Our existing system has led to alarming disparities in the type of students who are most likely to suffer these harms. Black students, Latinx students, students of color, and students with disabilities are disproportionately referred to law enforcement, cited, and arrested.”
