Recent events have produced sharp contrasts in how school resource officers — cops in the schools — are viewed locally, and their use in St. Paul and Minneapolis is now up for debate.
In May, St. Paul School District leaders honored Vernon Simmons, a longtime school resource officer, or SRO, known for his calming presence at Johnson High, then saw Central High students protest a white officer's forceful arrest of a black teen for trespassing a week later.
This week, Minneapolis is hosting community conversations on school climate — weeks after its secondary-school principals made an unsuccessful pitch to beef up the presence of officers in their schools.
If there is agreement, it's this: A resource officer should be more mentor, less enforcer, in dealings with students.
For now, there's tension, much of it in St. Paul.
Video of the 16-year-old's arrest at Central High was met with outrage in social media. The teen, a former Central student, was seen pinned on his stomach by Officer Bill Kraus while he cried for help, insisting that he was there only to visit a teacher. But police said that the teen was at the school for about an hour without permission, refused requests to leave and shoved the officer, who they say acted appropriately.
The incident came as the school board nears a June 21 decision on whether to approve a new contract for resource officers. The district now pays $854,214 to deploy nine.
While stopping short of saying resource officers should be pulled from the schools, Steve Marchese, a first-year board member, said in a Facebook post that the incident at Central raises questions about the "continued wisdom of SROs in our schools." He wants a public conversation about their role in the district. A group calling itself Advocates for Families and Youth has set such an event for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Hamline Midway Library.