Within the wake of yet one more college capturing, the killing of Amarr Murphy-Paine at Garfield Excessive Faculty, some individuals are calling for the return of cops in our public faculties. Mother and father are understandably frightened, however cops in faculties gained’t make our kids secure. Relatively, they are going to be used to self-discipline and intimidate college students. My household is aware of this from bitter expertise.
In 2017, my son, then a 17-year-old at Garfield Excessive Faculty, witnessed a horrifying hazing incident within the swim crew locker room. In 2019, he noticed doable sexual misconduct and reported the incident to highschool officers, however nothing was investigated. In January 2020, he reported his observations to a pupil journalist from the college newspaper, and I received a name from the Garfield college useful resource officer (SRO)—that’s, from a cop assigned to the college. After I picked up the telephone, I believed the SRO would offer assist. However he stated, “I need you to inform your son to STOP speaking to the newspaper.” These phrases marked the beginning of our lengthy battle with Seattle Public Colleges and the police they employed.
As we’d quickly study, this name was not from an SRO gone rogue. He was doing precisely what the district needed. The district didn’t need the general public to know that my son had seen bare seniors squatting over first-year faces whereas forcing the first-years to do sit-ups. So it turned to the SRO to close down my son.
That telephone name was simply the beginning of the SRO’s position within the college’s try and silence my son. Earlier than I obtained the telephone name, the vice principal introduced my son to his workplace, the place the SRO, armed and in full police uniform, stood over my son. They shut the door and ordered him to cease speaking to the press, telling him it will “not be in his greatest pursuits” to maintain talking out.
My son was terrified and crying by the point his dad arrived. With the SRO blocking the door, the vice principal made my husband and son signal a doc that might guarantee my son’s silence, a so-called “security plan.” This security plan was truly a disciplinary contract designed for juvenile offenders, with punitive penalties and a menace of disciplinary actions and expulsion for disobeying orders, which on this case included a requirement to cease speaking to the press.
In a deposition, the SRO later admitted that he wasn’t within the vice principal’s workplace to analyze something. Throughout that interview, he stated he was there to be “a presence within the room.” In my opinion, meaning he was used as intimidation to implement my son’s silence. The police uniform and gun seemed that my son may very well be arrested until he complied.
Once we filed a criticism with the district’s Workplace of Scholar Civil Rights, the district’s investigator was a former police officer. The investigator attacked my son’s credibility and accused him of “embellishing” resulting from his “situation.” He declared that the college principal has the proper to cease the publication of the college newspaper, though that’s in opposition to Washington state regulation.
The district was assured it had the regulation on its aspect, within the type of the police. The presence of police in school gave the looks of legitimacy and legality to the district’s actions, whether or not these actions have been authorized or not.
My son’s psychological well being plummeted after the encounter with the police at Garfield. A few of the quite a few employees concerned within the profitable suppression of the newspaper article have been promoted to prime tiers, and nobody from the district was ever held accountable for utilizing the presence of the SRO to silence my son concerning the hazing.
I don’t know if having an SRO at Garfield would have prevented college shootings, however I do know that the district makes use of SROs to self-discipline and intimidate college students. The SROs are utilized by the district as weapons of management and intimidation. Police in faculties don’t make our college students safer.
Amanda Thornewell is the father or mother of a former Garfield pupil and present high- schooler in Seattle Public Colleges. Her son lately gained a settlement with the college district.
