The Latest in School Wear : Campus Police in Pasadena Openly Carry Guns to Offer Greater Security

Students at John Muir High School in Pasadena used to call school police officer Myles Fowlis “half-time.” Without a gun to go with his uniform and badge, they saw him as just half a cop.

But now that school officers have begun wearing guns on their hips while patrolling the Pasadena Unified School District’s 32 campuses, they call him “full-time.”

“We know we’re going to be protected if anything goes wrong,” said Angelina Williams, an 11th-grader at Muir. Arthur Wilder, a ninth-grader, agrees. “It’s a good idea in case something happens,” he said.

This month, the Pasadena officers joined those in Pomona and Baldwin Park as the San Gabriel Valley’s only openly armed school police squads. The Pasadena school board approved the policy Oct. 6 as part of a reorganization of its seven-officer force after parents called for increased campus safety.

Before sidearms were approved, the officers carried concealed guns strapped to their legs that they complained were not easily accessible. Also as part of the change, officers switched from six-shot revolvers to semiautomatic Berettas.

“I’m not comfortable with openly armed officers around our campuses, but the reality is we have to protect our employees and students,” the Rev. George Van Alstine, president of the Board of Education, said of the new edict.

School officials say the need to protect students and teachers was driven home by the Halloween evening shooting of three teen-agers off campus.

Stephen Coats Jr., Reginald Crawford Jr., both 14, and Edgar (Eddie) Evans, 13, were gunned down in an ambush as they walked home from a party. Coats and Crawford attended Muir and Evans was a student at Washington Middle School.

“Our school campuses are the safest place in the community. Our goal is make sure crime stays out on the streets and not in the classroom,” said Jarado Blue, the district’s new police chief, a 13-year veteran of the Pasadena Police Department.

Although no shootings have occurred on campus, in February two boys in a pickup were struck by bullets fired from a passing car in front of Muir. Neither the victims nor the suspects were Muir students.

In the past year, district police have confiscated 10 guns, many of them semiautomatics, from students or others on or near the district’s high schools and middle schools. School officials say those confiscations barely illustrate the problem. They estimate that on any given day, there are approximately 20 to 30 guns and 50 knives at each of the district’s four high schools.

Blue said school officials cannot ignore the escalating random violence in society. Armed school police, he said, are needed to deter crime around campuses, especially by outsiders.

His officers responded to 311 crimes on or near campuses last school year and took more than 400 suspects into custody, according to school police.

There were 12 assaults with a deadly weapon, seven incidents where weapons were brandished, 16 cases of battery, 80 burglaries and dozens of disturbances.

Officers say the vast majority of the crimes took place on the streets surrounding campuses. Many of the most serious incidents involved former students, expelled students or students from other schools who hang around another campus.

Blue, 40, said he proposed that the district’s officers, most of whom were city police at one time, wear guns with their uniforms and badges because people are more inclined to respect a visibly armed officer.

“If they don’t see a gun, they don’t see a police officer,” Blue said.

And officers need to be able to protect themselves, he said.

Blue speaks from experience. As he and another officer attempted to search a few ex-Muir students trying to enter the high school in June, one pointed a semiautomatic pistol at them. The youths fled while Blue and the officer dived for cover. “It probably wouldn’t have happened if I had been wearing a sidearm,” he said.

School board member Anne W. Pursel said she had mixed feelings about openly arming the officers until she considered their plight. “I hate the thought of one more gun on campus, but I couldn’t send district officers into dangerous situations without sidearms,” she said.

Not all school districts agree with Pasadena’s approach. “There’s no need for armed police on campus,” said Heber J. Meeks, superintendent of the Alhambra Unified School District.

“If we need police officers with sidearms, the local police departments are here in minutes.”

Blue, however, disputes that police can respond quickly enough to emergencies. “School districts that don’t believe in having an armed presence on or around campus are cheating their students and staff of protection,” he insists.

In other security measures, the Pasadena school district is reducing campus entrances and acquiring radios that are compatible with those of the Pasadena Police Department. School police can tie in to state vehicle registration information.

Fowlis sees little difference in his role now that he wears a sidearm. “I’m still talking to kids, just trying to keep them out of trouble,” he said.