School Police to Ask Board for Shotguns in Patrol Cars

Los Angeles school police will go before a Board of Education committee today seeking permission to carry 12-gauge shotguns in their patrol cars.

The proposal pits parents and some school board members, who are worried about the use of the weapons on crowded campuses, against officers who maintain they are ill-equipped to protect schools and communities against well-armed criminals.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s Police Officers Assn. calls the shotgun a necessary tool for officers who regularly travel beyond campus gates and into some of Los Angeles’ most dangerous neighborhoods. It argues that shotguns can help deter violence by providing officers with a “tactical advantage”--for example, allowing lone patrol officers to hold several gang suspects on a campus at night while awaiting backup or enabling a single officer to contain a perimeter during the search of a building.

School police officials say the use of such weapons would not endanger students or staff because of the nature of campus crime--which occurs mostly after school hours and often in neighborhoods around school sites.

The district’s 90 school patrol officers would continue to be armed with 9-millimeter and .38-caliber pistols.

District Police Chief Wesley Mitchell says he supports the union’s proposal and wants to obtain 75 shotguns.

“I think the occasions when you see an officer get out of their vehicle with a shotgun will be rare,” Mitchell said. “I think the risks are minimal.”

School board member Valerie Fields, chairwoman of the board’s School Safety and Campus Environment Committee, said she is concerned.

“At this point, I cannot ever see a situation with children on campus where it would be safe to use a shotgun because of the way shotguns broadcast [their ammunition],” she said.

School board President Julie Korenstein expressed similar concerns, though, like Fields, she has not yet taken a position.

“I would not like to see them used on campuses at all,” Korenstein said. “I have some grave concerns about that.”

Some parents asked why school police need such firepower.

“What kinds of situations are they in that they would really need a shotgun and what kind of situation that they couldn’t get backup from the LAPD?” asked Diane Higginson, director of Community Concerns for the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn., which represents parent groups across the San Fernando Valley. She emphasized that the group has not taken a formal position on the shotgun proposal.

The police union’s plan calls for the shotguns to be deployed in patrol cars but not among the foot-patrol officers assigned to campuses.

Mitchell and other district police officials note that other law enforcement agencies--including the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department--equip their personnel with shotguns and that all peace officers regardless of their employer are required to undergo the same state-mandated firearms training.

“This is a basic police tool,” said Kevan Otto, a member of the board of directors for the police union. “Just about every other agency in the state that puts ‘police’ on the side of their patrol cars sends officers into the street with this piece of equipment.”

Mitchell said that shotguns could actually reduce “collateral damage,” or people struck by stray bullets. He explained that bullets from handguns can travel about one mile but that the steel pellets in shotguns go only about 400 feet.

He and others added that whether or not the school police officers get the shotguns, the weapons will be at schools occasionally because other police agencies equipped with the weapons respond to radio calls at campuses.

The shotgun proposal has won the support of some school board members, including David Tokofsky and Barbara Boudreaux.

Tokofsky says he had safety concerns initially but that he changed his mind after learning that the school police officers get the same training as other law enforcement authorities and that the weapons are deployed in patrol cars rather than with individual officers.

Boudreaux, a member of the school board’s safety committee, said the proposal makes sense for officers who are often asked to confront violent crime.

“I wouldn’t want someone to come protect my children in school with a peashooter up against someone with heavy arms,” she said. “They are out there in the field with less equipment, dealing with armed adult criminals. I want them to be equipped like all the other law enforcement agencies.”

But school board members said they had additional questions about deploying the weapons. Those questions will probably be addressed at today’s meeting, which will feature authorities from the Los Angeles Police Department and the county Sheriff’s Department.

Times correspondent Diane Wedner contributed to this story.