In the United States a sheriff is “an elected officer in a county who is responsible for keeping the peace” (Google Dictionary). But why are they present at school ? Does the fact that they are present reassure the students? The teachers? The staff? What is their main purpose in being there?
Jason Kim, a school resource officer (SRO) at Northwood told The Omniscient why he thinks it’s important to have SROs in schools.
“It’s important for several reasons, the most important one is the fact that students need protection, they need a liaison between law enforcement and the civilian administrators at the schools,” Kim said. “Also when things happen from a legal standpoint according to the law, you need a representative from law enforcement to take care of things, not just for protection but also to charge criminal offenses. So that would be some of the reasons.”
Kim said he wants to become an officer because he’s retired military and he “like[s] to solve problems.”
“I like to protect people and I like to fix problems, so that’s the main reason,” Kim said. “And I like to help people. I like to protect people.”
For Kim, it’s important to have a gun at school because “you can’t guarantee that people won’t show up with a gun so…in short, it takes a good person with a gun to stop a bad person with a gun, so that’s why it’s necessary.” Kim was asked about why in the U.S. specifically there should be police presence in schools, as many countries, such as France, do not have officers in schools.
“I think it’s different here because the culture here is so dynamic in the sense that I think one of them is the Second Amendment right of the citizens, the fact that all of the citizens have the right to own and bear arms,” Kim said. “We have to keep that in mind–[although] we enjoy that right, we have to keep that in mind, that having that right means that there can be extra dangers out there, so the officer at the school absolutely needs to have a weapon, a gun to protect students.”
Kim agrees that in a perfect world, everyday civilians would not need a gun, only law enforcement.
I wish it could be that way but in this specific… dynamic society where we live it’s just not possible,” Kim said. “Because of our American rights to own and bear arms, we’ve got to have our good guys–our officers need to bear arms so they can protect the good people from the bad people ”
Kim’s first job is to protect the school, but says he is “also trained in doing patrol.”
“When school closes in the summer, we go out and we can work in the jail, we can work in patrol, we can work in an investigation, we can work in any number of the other units within the sheriff’s office,” Kim said. “So yes, this is the primary mission but we also do other jobs as well. ”
Kim was in the U.S. Army before entering law enforcement.
“I was a courthouse bailiff for over a year and half, and I just started as an SRO [March 14],” Kim said. “(…) I have some private experience as an SRO in a different county, but this is the first full-time SRO position that I’ve held…. and I have a total of 8 years of experience in law enforcement and that’s after my twenty years in the US army.”
Northwood’s other sheriff, Feliciano Jiminez, said SROs are also in schools to build better relationships and become involved in the community. He insists that they are “humans with feelings and make mistakes too.”
“We might see you on the streets doing something great one day, [and] you could see us on the streets one day,” Jiminez said.
For some students, having an officer at school helps them to feel safe, as Senior Isai Saturnino Zavala said.
“He keeps us safe and in case there’s anything we need he is here to help us and the community,” Zavala said.
Senior Hannah O’Neil said that it was “important to have an SRO so that [students] can stay safe and just to stay protected, while [they’re] learning.”
“I just think that they are good to have because if you have to talk to anyone, he can be a great person to go talk to,” junior Regan Muller said.
“I think it’s important for the officer to be at school for our students to be able to build a positive relationship with law enforcement so that they can see the good and be able to have a resource to be able to ask questions if they arise,” Assistant Principal Wynne Youngblood said.
Art Teacher Leslie Burwell noted that having SROs in schools can help students know that the purpose of law enforcement is not just to punish, but to protect and support.
“I think to have people learn to trust the law enforcement agents has to be a positive to have an officer at school because he builds relationships with people, so when you graduate from high school if you just see police officers as people who are gonna ticket you or ride you for something you’ve done wrong, you might not trust them if you really needed him, and that’s what they’re for,” Burwell said. “Like, a lot of the time if something goes wrong in a domestic case you would need to trust to call an officer and so building relationships–they’re not just here to enforce rules–it’s really so that relationships can be built so that when you become an adult and you need an officer, you would trust them.”
