Active Shooter Fears and More School Police

Smaller communities around the area have been adding or talking about adding additional armed officers in their schools like some of the larger cities already do. Some have even been training for the possibility of the law being changed to allow school staff to carry their own firearms in school. The concerns revolve around, but are not limited to, concerns about active shootings that have occurred in areas where people gather. From children's schools such as the recent Valentine's Day attack in Parkland, Florida to Churches to concerts, etc. From the News-Gazette today:

Districts see need for school resource officer as 'unfortunately ... a sign of the times'
...
While the area's more urban school districts — Champaign, Urbana, Danville and Rantoul — have had SROs for years, smaller districts across East Central Illinois are starting to take steps to add officers.

At least seven area districts — including Mahomet-Seymour, Monticello, Villa Grove and Piatt County's four public districts — will have sworn police officers walking their school hallways for the first time this school year, with officials all citing safety concerns as the chief reason for taking the step.

More at the full article here with specific examples and highlights around the County and the East Central Illinois region. This bit from the County Sheriff's SRO stood out to me:

Champaign County Sheriff's Deputy Alicia Maxey is starting her 19th year as an SRO at St. Joseph-Ogden High and the two nearby elementary districts, St. Joseph and Prarieview-Ogden.

Her position, and that of another SRO at Tolono Unity, came to be because of a grant through the sheriff's office the year after what was at the time the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history — the 1999 massacre at Columbine High in Littleton, Colo.

You can't measure prevention, Maxey says, but she is certain that SROs make a difference.

"Having a squad car in front of the building and an officer in the building has got to deter something — it has to," she said.

It should be noted that some of the school shooting mentioned spanning two decades had armed officers on the school grounds with varying results. A key concern of many with our mass incarceration system is disparate disciplinary treatment in our own local districts and how that can add to the school to prison pipeline here at home and the country in general.

Previous posts on the area communities preparing teachers and students to survive active shooters: Preparing Kids to Survive Active Shooters and Saving Local Kids from Bleeding Out.