So it begins...

[rivll]

http://news.yahoo.com/armed-guards-sent-patrol-schools-la-phoenix-171345550--abc-news-topstories.html


Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and Tempe, sent a group of armed volunteers, known as his "volunteer posse," to patrol area schools today.

He had previously used the group to help bolster security at area malls during the heavy holiday shopping season, and to scope out undocumented immigrants living in the county.

Arpaio said it wasn't only the Newtown, Conn., school massacre on Dec.14 that convinced him to enlist his posse to patrol area schools -- a more local threat that resulted in the Dec. 20 arrest of a 16-year-old student at Red Mountain High School in Mesa for a plot to bomb the school and shoot the students and faculty also persuaded him.

"She did admit that she was going to blow up the school and shoot people in the school, and that sort of got me more interested in schools that are opening today," Arpaio told ABC News. "The posse was finishing their assignment after Christmas, so why not utilize those resources to patrol the perimeter of schools?"

More than 500 volunteers will help to patrol the county's 52 schools, along with members of the sheriff's Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, team when they are not performing their regular duties, along with police dog units, Arpaio said. The volunteers will receive 100 hours of training and drive marked vehicles. In some cases, they will be armed with automatic weapons, he said.

"I believe we should put police officers in school, in uniform, armed," Arpaio said. "But so far all the politicians do is talk, talk, talk, and so we're out there doing something."

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, in theory I support well trained guards in the schools. On the other hand it could set a precedent for vigilantism and chaos.

[rivll]

I agree Barb, I had guards in the High school I worked at as well, but these are not the security guards specifically trained with staff for schools and with a police liaison as back up.
I am not against it necessarily-something has to be done but I am uncomfortable about possible mob rule esp. in the lower grades.
I would like to know what their protocol is.

[adgal]

The mother in me completely understands why this is probably necessary.  I wish we could build a wall around all our children with snipers on top.  However, this still somehow just doesn't feel right to me and I'm not sure why.  Probably because it upsets me that it seems it is necessary now, and I hate that it has to come to this.  It's not right that we should even have to worry about our kids safety at school in this manner.  So very sad.

[Barb135]

We've had armed officers in our schools for years.  They're called "resource officers".  They are available to step in, whenever a situation escalates into anything remotely dangerous.  I watched one middle school student be taken off campus, when he refused to go to class and began hitting/kicking at other students and teachers.  The resource officer escorted him to the police car, calling the kid's  mother as they went.

Our students think nothing of the officer's presence and many of them become good friends and/or develop a new respect for  law enforcement. When I was working, my job took me from campus to campus (62 in all, in our county) and it gave me a sense of "unity" between the public and law enforcement, seeing the officers there on a daily basis.