Campus Guards Seek Police Officer Status

Henry Brice, a security guard for the Long Beach Unified School District, wears a badge and carries a gun. Yet, he says, he is frequently defied.

“They’re standing there saying, ‘You’re just a guard. Make me,’ ” Brice said.

Brice does not have the power to make them do anything. As a security guard, he does not have the authority of a police officer.

School board member Jerry Shultz wants to change that. Shultz has proposed creating a school district police department. The plan has been endorsed by the teacher’s union and district security officers, but is opposed by several top administrators and most school board members.

Supt. E. Tom Giugni said, “We would be assuming the responsibility of the Long Beach Police Department,” which is not the role of the school district.

Shultz argues that district officials have no choice but to take a more active role in school policing because the Long Beach Police Department is understaffed and fails to respond quickly to calls from the schools.

At a recent board meeting, Shultz read off a list of incidents in which Long Beach police failed to respond or were slow in responding to calls from school security guards.

“Burglars right now are having a field day,” Shultz said.

Vandalism cost the district $1.4 million during the 1988-89 academic year, a 107% increase from the previous school year. That figure is expected to double again in 1989-90 if the trend continues.

At the crux of the debate is whether school police officers are really necessary and whether they could make a difference. There is also concern that a campus police force could alter the image of schools as a safe haven, and in fact would change the atmosphere in schools.

“(Schools are) a place where we can come and we are safe,” said an assistant superintendent, Edward M. Eveland. “If you have real officers in our schools, you’ve changed the ballgame. Maybe we have to. I’m not sure. . . . Maybe we’ve reached that point.”

Felice Strauss, president of the Teachers Assn. of Long Beach, told the school board last month: “I think we have to look at the reality of what’s happening. The problems aren’t out there. They are inside our schools.”

Although district statistics do not show sharp increases in overall crime, there were several gun-related incidents earlier this year that scared many students and teachers, board members said.

Strauss encouraged board members to support the concept of campus police, but she questioned whether the current crop of security guards should automatically be upgraded to police status. Shultz noted that most of them once were police officers, but he said they would have to go back to the Police Academy and pass stringent requirements before being upgraded.

A new task force of parents, teachers, police officers and school administrators is being formed to discuss the overall issue, and is scheduled to issue a report in January.

If the school board were to take a vote on the matter today, the issue would die, Shultz acknowledged. Most board members argue, among other things, that bringing police officers to the schools would create unrealistic expectations that crime would be reduced.

Longtime board member Harriet Williams said she is “amazed” that crime isn’t higher. “It’s the times in which we live,” she said.

Board member Karin Polacheck told her colleagues at the Oct. 23 meeting, “I have a question of what we’re gaining by changing the status.”

The school district has two types of officers. Eleven security guards check on the buildings and ensure there are no problems or trespassers day or night. Seven attendance control officers work with Long Beach police officers to round up truants and answer calls from the schools during the daytime.

The role of security guards is to act as observers and report disturbances to the Long Beach police. The role of attendance control officers is to assist their police partners, but the attendance officers are not allowed to handle police equipment, such as driving the patrol car.

District officers have the same powers as regular citizens to make arrests, Shultz said. And while they can question trespassers on campus, they do not have the authority to stop them from walking away, or to take them to jail.

Security guard Christopher T. Reid explained: “If they want to, they could walk out and I am powerless to stop them because it is not reasonable to use force on a trespasser.”

Many thieves, street-savvy youths and troublemakers know the difference between a police officer’s legal authority and that of a security officer, according to the district’s guards.

“When we pull up in our white cars, they say, ‘Oh, it’s just school security. They can’t do anything,’ ” said security guard Ed West. “That’s all we are anymore--scarecrows. And we can’t even scare the crows.”

The problem is compounded by the Police Department’s slow response to calls from the schools, said Shultz and several guards.

West cited one recent example in which he responded to a silent alarm at Lindbergh Junior High School and found two teen-agers inside stealing school property. West handcuffed them, called the dispatcher and waited for Long Beach police to pick up the suspected burglars.

“After an hour goes by, I call the dispatcher again,” West said. Another hour went by, and he called a couple more times. “They said, ‘Hey, look, we don’t have a unit available.’ After 3 hours, 52 minutes, I finally let them go.” He took their pictures and jotted down the names they gave him, but the teens lied about their identity.

At the Oct. 23 school board meeting, Shultz read a list of incidents in which police were late in answering calls, did not respond at all or were so busy that they called the security guards themselves to report problems:

* May 10: Police called the district’s security guards about a “large fight at Hughes Junior High” because police units were not available.

* June 18: A trespasser and warrant suspect was in custody at Hudson Elementary School and police were called at 3:13 p.m. They arrived at 5:25 p.m.

* July 2: Police were called at 6:15 p.m. about two suspects held at Lindbergh Junior High. The police dispatcher placed school security “on hold and did not resume contact.”

* July 10: Police asked district security guards to respond to a report about two trespassers at Mann Elementary School because no police units were available.

“If we think that Long Beach police have the capability of handling our problems, we’re very naive,” Shultz said. “I’m not knocking Long Beach police. They have staffing problems. But we have to look at it realistically.”

Police this year have increasingly complained of being understaffed, and city officials are considering asking the public to vote on a tax increase to hire more officers.

The security guards and attendance control officers interviewed said they endorse the concept of switching their status to peace officer, which would give them the same powers as a police officer while on duty.

Until 1984, the school district maintained a force of peace officers, but when the Legislature ordered districts to choose between their own security department or a police department, district officials opted for security officers.

The security officers were paid the same. As a result, “we have the highest paid security officers in the state of California,” Shultz told his colleagues, who had questioned whether converting the security officers to police officers would cost the district more money.

“In an ideal world,” Shultz told his colleagues, police officers on campus would not be necessary. “(But) this is not an ideal world, folks.”

RISING COST OF VANDALISM

% Change % Change Dollar Previous Previous School Year Costs School Year Incidents School Year 1986-87 $703,469 -- 3,140 -- 1987-88 702,701 -1 3,459 10 1988-89 1,455,873 107 4,432 28 1989-90 (est.) 3,013,657 107 5,672 28

S ource: Long Beach Unified School District