News and Information

Police officers stationed in six county middle schools
Capital Online, By ELISABETH HULETTE Staff Writer

August 31, 2007 – Walking through the cafeteria at Annapolis Middle School earlier this week, Cpl. Martin Freeman attracted more than a few wide-eyed stares from students.

Dressed in full police garb, Cpl. Freeman may look intimidating, but once he introduced himself to the students, they started talking with him, curious about the officer who will be stationed in their school this year.

"I want to be on the scene and able to respond at a moment's notice," said Cpl. Freeman, as he walked through the cafeteria. "Most of the kids have been responsive."

Cpl. Freeman is one of five school resource officers, or SROs, who will be stationed in six county middle schools. It's the first time officers will be in middle schools.

Resource officers regularly patrol the halls of all 12 high schools. All officers are from the county Police Department.

One of the officers will be stationed in each of the following four middle schools: Marley, MacArthur, Chesapeake and Annapolis. And one officer will cover both Old Mill Middle North and Old Mill Middle South schools, said Bob Yatsuk, project manager in the school system's Office of School Security.

"Middle schools are an area where children are obviously coming of age, and in some cases we've had some disciplinary issues there," Mr. Yatsuk said.

In addition, "it's a good place for officers to get to know the students. By the time they're in high school, they have had some familiarity with the police officers," he said.

And when the students get to high school, they will be more likely to come to a police officer they know and trust when they have problems at home or with gangs, said Lt. Doyle Batten, community relations section commander for police.

"It's beneficial to build that early relationship," he said.

Funding for the five new officers came from the police department through the county executive's budget, Lt. Batten said.

County Executive John R. Leopold said it's money well-spent.

"I consider a safe and secure learning environment to be a priority," he said.

School resource officers were first put in county schools in 2000. Last year, there also was an officer in J. Albert Adams Academy, an alternative middle school, Mr. Yatsuk said.

Each officer carries a .40-caliber handgun, an extendable baton and pepper spray, Lt. Batten said.

They respond to incidents that require help from police, and can make arrests, he said. But their primary purpose is to protect students from "acts of violence from the outside."

Lt. Batten said officers have used pepper spray and have intervened in fights in schools and he has never heard of a resource officer firing a gun in a school.

"We believe they earn the trust" of students and their parents and serve as positive role models, he said.

The six middle schools were chosen based on recommendations from the Office of School Security, school system instructional staff and the police department, Lt. Batten said. The recommendations were based on the size and enrollment of the schools "where we felt we could have the best and most impact on the most students," he said.

Lisa Madson, the president of MacArthur's Parent-Teacher Association with a daughter in eight grade, said she is looking forward to having an officer in the school.

"We've had a lot of discipline issues; a lot of fights, quite a bit of violence in the school and on the school grounds," she said. "We were thrilled to find out there would be an officer there to hopefully eliminate some of that."

Also to beef up security this year, the Office of School Security is installing visual intercom systems in all elementary schools and four special schools, Mr. Yatsuk said.

Called AIPhones, the intercoms allow school administrators to see visitors before letting them into schools.

More surveillance cameras are being installed in schools, Mr. Yatsuk said, and the high schools and middle schools now have VSoft visitor sign-in systems, which scan visitors' photo IDs and check their names against sexual offender databases.

Funding for the VSoft system came from a federal grant, Mr. Yatsuk said, and the office of school security is working to get the system into elementary schools.