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Let police officers choose the tools for their jobs. You won't find a more violent and uncivilized workplace than a public middle or high school. The SROs should make the decisions when it comes to behavior which is illegal and dangerous.

Shoot them with a 9mm then let the parents, Jesse, Al and the rest of the fools decide which consistently does the most harm. We live in shameful times.

I agree with the previous comments. The Police Dept should make their own rules, not the school board. The school grounds are some of the most dangerous public places today. The officers are trained and would only use them when there are safety concerns for themselves, or other students.

I agree with Norm .. Why should policemen have a different set of tools for their job in a school than they do in every other environment? Do parents protest when an officer with a gun on his/her belt walks next to their child in a restaurant or the mall or a ballgame? We need to teach our society responsibility for personal decisions. The only method to teach this lesson is to enforce accountability for good and bad decisions through our public school system because it has the broadest and most diverse reach into our communities. I believe the nightmare our nation faces economically and especially in the banking sector is largely a result of schools and parents failing to teach lessons of responsibility at an early age (or any age for that matter). Policemen with guns (and tasers) are not the problem. People who make poor decisions, such as assaulting a police officer, are the problem and should face the consequences of their personal decisions so that they will learn a lesson. When a student who assualted a police officer suffers harsh consequences, others who witness these consequences benefit from the tuition payment of the stupid. Later on in life, when a borrower fails to make the payments promised on debt, foreclosure of the property teaches everyone who witnesses the foreclosure a valuable lesson that benefits every person in this country. We can't afford laws and rules that are designed to protect the stupid. Instead, our citizenry needs to grow up and learn to live daily with the reasonable level of responsibility expected in any civilized society. Our school board should support this lesson (of real life) in our schools, not impede it.

Another example of poor leadership on the part of Chief Bellamy. He knows that tasers are a hot topic in this community and he secretly sends his officers into schools, carrying tasers. This is the kind of leadership we need to rid ourselves of, and we can all start by throwing out every incumbent on the city council. We have a new city manager, we will have a new council, and soon we will have a new chief that possesses the kind of leadership skills this city needs to lift it up out of the hole it has been in for the last 5 years.

If this weren't my home school district I would laugh at the veiled concerns by these school board members. I can't understand why anyone would be concerned about a taser. Use last week's example. A young woman assaults two school officials and an officer. The officer used his less-than-lethal form of defense to control the situation. What would have happened if that officer did not have a taser? I'm sure the officer would have been very reluctant to use a gun, so how many others would have been assaulted before the situation ended? I wonder what these naysayer board members would have had the officer do? A taser is a tool in a toolbelt. The more tools you have, the more options you have in controlling a situation.

Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.

I wonder what it would be like to have a school board that focuses on education?

Is everyone overlooking the real issue here? Why do we need police officers in our schools to begin with? It wasn't too many years ago when all a school needed was a tough principal with a paddle. Yes, things have changed, but why? How have we as a society slid so far that schools can't maintain peace without a police presence?

Whether or not they have Taser's is insignificant to the greater problem.

There are principals that stomp their feet and complain about their SROs for the sole purpose of getting them off campus. These principals will try to create enough pressure until the SRO's chain of command, in cowardly form, removes that SRO and replaces him with another. Why??? The SRO was busting his tail, gaining information on and charging the worst criminals on that campus each time they committed a significant crime. You might ask why the principal would have a problem with that. The school system has put pressure on the principals to keep students on campus at almost all costs, including safety. These principals get more money for their school by having more students enrolled, so there is a direct and enormous conflict of interest between principals and money with SROs and safety.

The school board and it's comically biased and politically motivated members have done the most part in creating this bizarro world atmosphere on school campuses. Their complaints about tasers are both literally ignorant and hypocritical based on the money/safety conflict. The school board wants the principals to keep every student possible on campus, so principals try to do that to keep their job. That makes principals alter student discipline reports, argue with SROs and pull all kinds of duplicitous moves to have the SRO removed, and even blatently break the law by hiding weapons and drugs from the SRO that were found on students. I know this to be true, and the school board wants to keep parents and citizens in the dark about it. Stomping feet and crying foul about tasers is only a ploy, because high-profile taser incidents cannot be covered up and will force principals to fully discipine students to the point of expulsion and loss of money. Taser incidents will also force the school board to acknowledge just how bad it is on school campuses, and that will ruin their agendas. Be prepared for overblown criticism of any taser incident involving GPD officers this school year, but know that it is all hypocritical BS.

Considering the above factors, why should Chief Bellamy give the school board a heads up so that they can prepare a coordinated PR stomp and cry session? These hypocritical clowns don't deserve the consideration, and they'll just have to deal with it.

Someone previously mentioned that the School Board should focus on education - I wish that were true too. Some members have their own agendas - Deena Hayes views her position as being one to advocate for subcontracts to be awarded in certain ways. I've never heard her discuss educational issues.

Mr. Flowers
How long do you think it would take this girls mother to get to school and threaten to stomp the principals ace.
If a principal or one of his or her staff even showed a student a paddle denna or amos would demand dismissal immediately.

For once I'm going to agree with Chief Bellamy, If the problems are big enough to call police officers,
send them with the equipment to protect themselves.

Tasers kill. They have been used twice since the 4th of July. One death, one survivor. I don't like the odds. I would like for you to consider one question? If you had two teenage sons that got into a fight, would you use a taser to break them up. I would not. These teenagers are not adults. They deserve to live. Firing now and asking questions later not acceptable.