A group of Durham Public School students calls for the removal of school resource officers
A group of Durham Public School students are demanding the removal of School Resource Officers. This comes after increased scrutiny of current police practices.
Posted — UpdatedA movement taken to the streets, is now making its way to the classrooms.
“School is supposed to be the safest place for a student,” said Elijah King. “The safest place rid of bias, rid of religious bias, rid of all that stuff, but they go there and see the same stuff they’re trying to escape from,” King added.
“They’re not very transparent with what’s going on. We’ve asked them for information about incident reports. They don’t provide those. I feel like that should be public record for our parents to see what’s going on in our schools,” said Formey.
“Having police officers in schools is not tied to a decrease in mass shootings. The data shows that police in schools, and the presence of police in schools leads to an increase in arrests for minor offenses,” said Tyler Whittenberg, the Chief Council of Justice System Reform at Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
“A restorative justice counselor, de-escalation taskforce, and mental health support services to address mental health and social support for at risk students,” said King.
“I hope that if DPS, the county and the sheriff’s office really care about us, then they’ll support this. That’s what I hope comes out of all of this,” King added.
WRAL News is waiting to hear back from DPS to obtain some of their data regarding the SRO's incident reports over the past year.
The Youth Justice Project has organized a ‘Black Students Matter’ march for Saturday, June 13 at D.P.S. to continue calling for change.
Students in Wake County are also pushing for the removal of School Resource Officers. Letters were sent to the County Board of Education today.
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