Again, another school shooting: two teachers and two students killed; another eight, including a teacher, wounded at Apalachee High School in Winder, GA.
So far this year, 45 shootings have occurred, but this is the worst.
You may remember that after the George Floyd killing by police (2020), a groundswell of anti-police rhetoric occurred, with calls to defund police and remove school resource officers (SROs). Subsequently, police budgets were slashed and 50 school districts across the country removed SROs from their schools.
A year before George Floyd, 2019 presidential candidate Kamela Harris told a college audience, “What we need to do about … demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of schools. We need to deal with the reality and speak the truth about the inequities around school discipline. Where in particular, Black and Brown boys are being expelled and or suspended as young as, I’ve seen, as young as in elementary school” (Interview, Benedict College, Columbia, SC.).
Some studies had argued that SROs resulted in a disproportionate number of minority students suspended or arrested, leading to greater recidivism.
In all fairness, Harris has walked back several of her earlier policy positions: decriminalizing illegal immigration, banning oil fracking, and eliminating private health insurance. The public deserves to know her present stance on SROs.
By the way, her Veep choice, Tim Waltz, known to be progressive, signed into Minnesota law (March 14, 2024), a bipartisan bill allowing SRO specified disciplinary protocol that includes prone restraint.
CNN reports that the shooting at Apalachee High School stopped when an unnamed SRO confronted the alleged fourteen year odd assailant, ordering him to get down on the floor (September 5, 2024).
Hopefully, his heroism will not go unnoticed.
–rj
Brimmings: up from the well 