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School board discusses Tasers in schools

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Friday, September 25, 2009

(Updated 1:20 pm)

By J. Brian Ewing
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — The issue of Tasers in schools got a long going over during Thursday’s school board meeting, with several people speaking passionately about the issue.

“I don’t feel comfortable with the police policing themselves,” said board member Deena Hayes.

Hayes asked that the school board consider creating a review process to review incidents involving school resource officers using Tasers against students.

Hayes also said she wanted the committee to have subpoena power to force officers to attend the reviews.

Schools attorney Jill Wilson said the board does have subpoena power, but it isn’t clear that extends to matters of this nature.

Hayes later tabled her request to do more research on the issue.

The discussion comes about a week after a sheriff’s deputy working as a school resource officer at Ragsdale High used a Taser on a 15-year-old girl. The sheriff’s office reports the girl assaulted two school officials and the deputy.

Several people spoke to the board on the issue during the its public comment period, including Linda Mozell.

“We’re talking about a grown man handling a child. Would he handle his own child that way?” Mozell said later.

Board member Paul Daniels spoke to that, saying he would deal with his children the same way his parents had: sternly. He predicted that if the school board took officers out of schools there would be a massive public backlash.

“There would be a hue and cry,” he said. “And a mass exodus from our schools.”

Board members stressed repeatedly they were not against law enforcement, and most said they supported having school resource officers.

The district contracts with the High Point and Greensboro police departments and the sheriff’s office to place officers in almost all high schools and many middle schools.

The school system contracts for 16 deputies, seven High Point police officers and 15 Greensboro officers to work as school resource officers.

The only school resource officers not armed with Tasers work at Ferndale, Welborn and Penn-Griffin middle schools and the Pruette SCALE Academy in High Point.

Greensboro and High Point officers began carrying the weapons this year, but Greensboro police made no mention of the change to schools officials during the summer.

That irritated some on the board.

“I’m very disappointed in the Greensboro Police Department’s deployment of Tasers without any discussion with us,” said board member Jeff Belton.

Belton said if the school board is disturbed with the use of Tasers in schools maybe it should discuss the issue with the City Council rather than the police department.

Board member Darlene Garrett took a different approach to the issue. Garrett expressed her opposition to Tasers in schools but said the school system might need to do more to prevent their use, including getting trained counselors involved in volatile situations first.

“Why aren’t we using them more?” Garrett asked. “To me the key is training our own staff.”

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing@news-record.com

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angie123

September 25, 2009 - 7:52 am EDT

I heard those speakers last night at the board meeting - over and over they talked about the poor pitiful girl who had been tazed by the police. Somehow they failed to mention what SHE had done to get herself in that predicament - she threatened 2 teachers and tried to assault the police officer. If she had been behaving properly, none of this would have happened. Somehow I sense that Deena Hayes thinks this type of behavior is ok in the schools.

Interested

September 25, 2009 - 8:23 am EDT

Disagreement with the use of a taser does not mean the woman condones the student's behavior. My sense is that Ms. Hayes instead believes that two wrongs don't make a right. That being said, I would hardly call a fifteen year old a child. Psychologically, emotionally - yes, she is more similar to a child than an adult. But physically, most fifteen year olds more closely resemble an adult and pose a risk when they become combative. As for Mr. Daniels' claim that there would be a "mass exodus" - I doubt it. Where would all these children go? It sounds more like an excuse to not look into this complicated issue - How do we keep our children safe while at the same time ensuring the safety of those charged with keeping order in our schools?

Paul Daniels

September 25, 2009 - 10:11 am EDT

Interested:

Anyone who knows me or has seen me at school board meetings knows that I don't shy away from any issue. If I really believe that this was an issue the board needed to involve itself more in, I would.

We train law enforcement officers to use tasers and teach them when to use them and vest them with a great deal of discretion to make judgment calls on the spur of the moment. As a lawyer, I understand very well the legal definition of "discretion", which is that a decision can be overturned as error only when no reasonable person would have taken the same action. This is a very steep hill to climb, and I don't believe that it is worth the board's time and efforts to "tilt at windmills." (If you would like to see my full statement on this issue, you can now go to GCS's website and watch last night's meeting).

Additionally, there are already checks in place to determine whether an officer has abused his substantial discretion. Officers can be fired or sued, for example, if they abuse their discretion. No one on the board that I am aware of has any training in law enforcement, and, generally speaking, I don't believe that we have the background to reasonably evaluate whether a law enforcement officer has abused his discretion. I think that this boils down to a question as to whether you belive that the police can police themselves. While I am not blind to the fact that there is sometimes corruption, etc. among law enforcement officers, we have adequate safeguards in place, i.e. lawsuits, in the event that there are abuses.

You don't know all the facts in this case because it cannot be made public (by the board, anyway). If you are interested, you may be able to get a report from the sheriff's office (I am not sure, however, given the student's age). Honestly, I think we do a disservice to ourselves and the community when there is some information out there that we cannot share for privacy reasons, that is very important to understand how and why the board did something. This is not the first instance where an inability to disclose all the facts has raised issues with the public - the issue at Northern High School is a classic example.

I believe that there is an underlying current on the board that does not want tasers (and I dare say, some are not at all happy with SROs in schools) and I believe that this is an attempt to outflank the majority of the board, and the community, which has spoken clearly that we want and need SROs in the schools.

Does a police officer's use of a taser at school differ in quality from his use of a taser anywhere else? What if the student were at the mall, instead? It seems to me that some people have concluded unreasonably that the use of a taser at school should be held to a different standard than the use of a taser elsewhere. This distinction makes no sense to me.

Finally, I am confident that there would be a huge backlash if we took SROs out of schools (and SROs will leave if we tell the Sheriff or the police chiefs that their officers cannot carry tasers). There will be students who will leave, and just as importantly, a great number of teachers who have seen their colleagues assaulted even with SROs in schools will leave.

Verty truly yours,

Paul A. Daniels,
District 5

Interested

September 25, 2009 - 11:29 am EDT

You are correct; the only information I have about this incident comes from this article, so clearly I don't know all the facts. The point I was trying to make was that this is a complicated issue. Parents want their children educated in a safe environment. But they question how that safety is affected by the presence of an armed officer. Of course, the officer's safety must be considered as well, as he is dealing with individuals who are physically adults, but emotionally children. I suppose I read something into your statement; I took it to say "without tasers, we have no SROs. And with no SROs there will be a mass exodus." I have no doubt that some parents would place their children in alternative settings if they felt their school was an unsafe environment. "Mass exodus" seemed like a bit of an overstatement designed to elicit a response, somewhat akin to "death panels." The impression I walked away with after reading the portion of your statement the paper printed was that it is easier to use fear to keep tasers in the school than it was to educate parents as to why the sheriff's office felt it wise to so arm its officers. Upon second reading, I can see where my comment sounds offensive. I do apologize.

Bill Witherspoon

September 25, 2009 - 12:40 pm EDT

Interested here are some fact for you. I was an SRO in guilford county schools for 5 years. There are bad people in school with your kids. People who rob, steal, shoot, stab, other people. Convicted felons and convicted sex offenders. There are weapons, guns, knives etc on campus everyday. There are drugs, marijuana, crack, heroine, ecstasy and more. There are people coming on to campus who want to harm students. Did you know a student can be caught with a loaded firearm in school and return to that school in one year? It happens. Did you the self proclaimed leader of the Latin Kings, Jorge Cornell, has been appointed to the School Safety/Gang Policy commitee? Did you know Guilford County had a campus shooting in the 90's where an asst principal was shot and then the gunman turned the gun on himself. If you don't think armed police are needed on campus then you just don't know the facts. As a parent of 3 kids in Guilford County I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by while our school board continues to blame the police for the fact that there are dangerous kids in our schools. God forbid we have another shooter on campus but I'm afraid that's what it may take to wake some people up!

Interested

September 25, 2009 - 3:07 pm EDT

Mr. Witherspoon, nowhere did I state that I thought SROs should not be armed. Perhaps you should re-read my statements. What I did say was that the parents should be educated as to why SROs should be armed with tasers, which I believe Mr. Daniels did in his reply to my first post. Having been raised in NY in the seventies, I saw these issues in schools long before anyone growing up in NC did. I am well acquainted with the potential threat that exists which is why I clearly stated that obviously the sheriff's office felt it was necessary to arm its SROs. I also don't believe that the school board blames the police for dangerous children being in the schools.

america

September 25, 2009 - 11:54 am EDT

Thank you, Mr. Daniels. I appreciate your logical and appropriate response and support of our children.

EGParent

September 25, 2009 - 12:48 pm EDT

The School Board needs to take a hands off approach and let arresting officers do their jobs.

If a student feels a situation has been mishandled by an officer, there is already a means to deal with it.
They can report it to the arresting officer supervisor or take it to court.

Those weeping for this poor little 15 year old girl has obviously never witnessed her fight!!

buzzman

September 25, 2009 - 8:40 am EDT

The school board should be talking about how to improve the education of our kids and how to operate the schools more efficiently. It's typical Guilford County for them to be sticking their noses into someone elses business. Those folks are extremely naive and I seriously doubt that they know anything about how some kids act-out in school and constantly interfere with the teaching process which is why learning has declined. TV showed one parent saying that she wouldn't want her "little girl" to be tasered. If that parent was confident that her "little girl" would behave herself in school, she wouldn't even have been at the meeting in the first place. It's always the parents with unruly kids who cry foul. If they'd pay attention to raising them, we wouldn't have discipline problems in the school and thus would not need the SROs.
Also, with all the uproar about this, I expect that the girl who was tasered is black. It's just STATISTICS that the blacks create the bulk of the problems. Yes, yes I know! Someone is going to label me racist and call for my RESIGNATION!

oscardad44

September 25, 2009 - 8:41 am EDT

Perhaps the Ragsdale students can also be stand up for one of their own students. With the history at that school I would question who to believe at this point one day you have teachers being charged for the sale of drugs the next day you have a phone message from the principal sharing information about a case the day of the incident. I really hope the district will closely monitor this school.

If none of us where there and the student is not able to provide her side of the story it is something clearly wrong with this picture. However I think we all are missing something very valuable about this she was a EC student with rights. http://www.gcsnc.com/depts/EC/ec_home.htm

AirDoc

September 25, 2009 - 9:34 am EDT

oscar - what kind of history would you be referring to at Ragsdale other than a couple of isolated incidents? My kids just graduated from Ragsdale and I didn't see a school in peril there. And do we really need to let every 15 year old have a public hearing when they violate the law? Certainly they should have their day in court, and time in front of a TV camera if they so wish to pursue it, but do we always have to hear a lawbreaker's take on how wrong society was for holding them accountable for their actions?

whatnow

September 25, 2009 - 8:45 am EDT

Discipline begins at home and unfortunately, in so many households now there is no such thing. Children are allowed to do whatever, whenever they please and there are no consequences. They think they are in the right because a lot of them have not been taught any different. When I was in school if I got in trouble, I got in trouble double at home. We knew to respect authority. Too many people scream brutality now if someone disciplines their child....something they should be doing themselves, thereby freeing up authority figures to concentrate on more serious matters. But! If people disciplined their children and taught them right from wrong and to accept the results of their actions, there wouldn't be any serious matters..

Voice of Reason

September 25, 2009 - 8:45 am EDT

Linda Mozell shows, in her statement, a supreme amount of ignorance. There is a difference between discipline and law enforcement. The officer was arresting the girl, not disciplining her. This, I think, is a major point of confusion on this issue- the members of the school board have forgotten their place, and forgotten the reason the officers are there. Not for discipline, but to keep the peace.

JackK

September 25, 2009 - 2:29 pm EDT

I agree that there is a world of difference between disciplining a youngster and maintaining the peace. Another distinction that might be useful is between discipline and punishment. Many speak as if they are synonymous, but in reality, punishment is only a small part of a disciplinary program. While the threat of actual punishment might make many young people decide to alter their behavior, any punishment they receive is only part of a larger disciplinary effort, whether external or internal.

buzzman

September 25, 2009 - 2:34 pm EDT

As usual, when the N&R doesn't like the comments, they take the story off the front page. I completely support what Paul Daniels has said. And, you folks who are ignorant, pay attention to what Bill Witherspoon has told you about the BAD people who attend our schools. If these hoodlums could be treated like the scum that they are, the schools could be cleaned up and we wouldn't have these problems. But no, because someone is always standing by to play the 'race card.'
Things certainly aren't going to get any better until those of you who want to make this an issue face reality. I'm not holding my breath!