• Home
  • About
    • Authors
  • Articles
    • Archives
    • Chaplain
    • Crime & Controversy
    • Community
    • Cop Humor
    • Editorial
    • Op-ed
    • Gear & Technology
    • Investigations
    • Laws & Legal
    • Leadership
    • News
    • Officer Down
    • On Duty
    • Tactics
  • Network
    • Illinois Network
    • Minneapolis Network
    • Tulsa Network
    • Wauwatosa Network
    • Learn more
  • Training
  • Officer Privacy
  • Jobs
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
Law Officer
Law Officer
No Result
View All Result

Gutting Police Services for Pie in the Sky

Seattle police officer

(pxfuel)

November 28, 2022
National Police AssociationbyNational Police Association
Share and speak up for justice, law & order...

If a headline read “Ambulance Services Cut to Fund Cardiac Health,” readers would shake their heads in disbelief. Would hospitals really stop responding to ambulance calls for heart attack victims to help pay for education, brochures, checkups, and low-fat diet plans? Do nations at war cut spending on troops to pay for more diplomats? Should plumbers stop fixing stopped-up toilets and concentrate on installing new pipes?

The teacher’s union in Bellevue, Washington has passed a resolution against having a school resource officer (SRO) in favor of using whatever funds would be for a police presence in their school to be funneled into counseling and mental health services. The renewed discussion comes after a shooting at a nearby Seattle school that left a 17-year-old student dead at the hand of a 14-year-old who brought a handgun to Ingraham High School.

The union, claiming to represent the interests of Bellevue teachers, parroted the ideology of the National Education Association which vociferously opposes law enforcement in schools as a corollary to their Black Lives Matter in schools agenda. “There’s definitely a history with students of color feeling a certain way with the presence of officers in school,” Jill Rock, president of the Bellevue Education Association asserted.

The resolution referred to a previous 2020 resolution that states the district must recognize “…that we participate in and perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline and other expressions of institutional racism through our biases, our curriculum, our pedagogy, and our discipline policies, and that we continue to harm Black students and families when we do not act to dismantle institutional racism…”

The resolution goes on to say, “WHEREAS, the Bellevue Education Association recognizes that many students and staff have experienced an increase in violence across campuses in recent years and there exist valid, important concerns regarding safety on campus. WHEREAS, the BEA supports clarifying the responsibilities and further training of on-campus Administration to respond to incidents of violence and also to increase access to mental health counseling at our schools.”

Whether the union truly represents the feelings of teachers or students of the school, it does represent some curious reasoning in explaining its opposition to SROs. In referring to the “school-to-prison” pipeline, the resolution states as fact that responding to disciplinary problems results in students being groomed for a life behind bars because of institutional racism. Differential treatment by race is certainly a matter deserving of study and monitoring, but to identify SROs as a core component of the allegation ignores the value of officers’ presence.

In an irony that seems to escape the authors of the resolution, the document validates the existence of safety threats on campus and an increase in violence. Their answer is to better train administrators on responding to incidents of violence. If there is an administrator’s union, it would be interesting to see what their view would be of making first responders out of administrators.

There is widespread agreement that the need exists for better access to mental health services, especially for young people. What is far less certain is what these preventive services would accomplish in reducing individual’s acts of violence. SROs are a safety net, not only for immediate response to threats and violence but as an effective relational connection to students and a presence that can discourage attacks.

The final logical fallacy of the purloining of law enforcement resources to fund mental health resources is that it is a binary choice of one or the other. They are two different functions for two different purposes. There is no mathematical correlation to school safety in subtracting from one and adding to another. So, sure, bring on the counselors. But keep the cops.


About the author: Joel F. Shults is a retired police chief. He is an award winning writer, college professor, trainer, and first responder chaplain. He is the author of several law enforcement related books and articles. Shults currently serves as a municipal judge and a coroner’s investigator in rural southern Colorado.

Joel can be found on twitter @retiredsorta, and online at joelshults.blogspot.com, and streetsmartforce.com.


This article originally appeared at the National Police Association. 


Share and speak up for justice, law & order...
Tags: Bellevuebudget cutsChief Joel F. ShultsdefundingJill RockNational Education Associationspending cutswashington
National Police Association

National Police Association

The National Police Association is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization, IRS NTEE classification code B01, Alliance/Advocacy Organizations, within the Educational Organizations category, EIN 82-0647764, founded to educate supporters of law enforcement in how to help police departments accomplish their goals. The National Police Association is supported solely through contributions of individuals and organizations. Donations are tax deductible.

Related Posts

(Shutterstock)

Shooting Under Internal and External Stress

November 19, 2022
drunk drivers

Drunk Drivers Killing Cops

November 18, 2022
Louis Vuitton

Thief knocks himself out trying to flee store with luxury stolen goods

November 8, 2022
car bombing

Car bomb explodes at funeral, suspect fires ‘several rounds’ at witnesses during getaway

September 13, 2022
Heroic Police Work

Appeals Court Hears Lawsuit Against Heroic Police Work

June 28, 2022
Gods 911

Police Advocacy Group Files Amicus Brief in United States Supreme Court Supporting Schenectady, NYPD Detective

June 17, 2022
Load More

Latest Articles

Alireza Heidari

Iranian illegal immigrant on terror watch list captured by Texas DPS near southern border

February 1, 2023
Gonzalo Carrasco

California police officer shot and killed while checking on ‘suspicious person’

February 1, 2023
Marine recruiters

Marine recruiters try to get members booted over vax mandate to rejoin

February 1, 2023
Sharaban K

Woman accused of murdering lookalike to fake own death, prosecutors say

February 1, 2023
Madison Russo

TikToker charged with conning people out of $37K with GoFundMe cancer scam

January 31, 2023
Israel Martinez Lopez

Illegal immigrant charged in third fatal Wisconsin crash in past two months

January 31, 2023
Load More

Weekly E-Newsletter

Subscribe—and get the latest news and editorials direct from Law Officer each week!

[newsletter_form type="minimal"]

JOIN THE FIGHT

BE COURAGEOUS

FIND MORE…

Law Officer

© 2021 LawOfficer.com

LawOfficer.com

  • Home
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact

Speak up for justice, law & order

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Authors
  • Articles
    • Archives
    • Chaplain
    • Crime & Controversy
    • Community
    • Cop Humor
    • Editorial
    • Op-ed
    • Gear & Technology
    • Investigations
    • Laws & Legal
    • Leadership
    • News
    • Officer Down
    • On Duty
    • Tactics
  • Network
    • Illinois Network
    • Minneapolis Network
    • Tulsa Network
    • Wauwatosa Network
    • Learn more
  • Training
  • Officer Privacy
  • Jobs
  • Contact

© 2021 LawOfficer.com