School Police and Firepower

School police are charged with protecting the students, staff and property of the vast Los Angeles Unified School District, a job that has become increasingly dangerous with the rise of gangs and guns. The union that represents this force has asked the Board of Education to equip its patrol cars with shotguns, a more powerful and intimidating weapon than the nine-millimeter pistols that school officers now carry. The officers’ desire for more firepower is understandable. But under what circumstance would lethal shotguns, with their wide, indiscriminate shot pattern, make schoolchildren safer? No persuasive evidence has been presented. Until more solid proof of need is shown, the request should be denied.

The school board is expected to vote on the request Feb. 23, and most members appear persuaded of the need to increase the firepower of the school force, which may be outgunned and sometimes outmanned when its officers respond to late-night burglar alarms or drive-by shootings on and off campus.

School board member Valerie Fields, for one, has raised important questions about the risk of injury to innocent bystanders if school police are issued shotguns, and the potential cost of lawsuits to the school district. On the other hand, Wesley Mitchell, the school district police chief, argues that the increased confidence the shotguns would give officers would pay off in better police work in a life-or-death situation. He also says the shorter range of a shotgun blast poses less danger than handguns to innocent bystanders. But schools and the areas around them are often packed with children. One ill-aimed or accidental or panicked shotgun blast could maim a number of students.

There is also a danger that a shotgun might be stolen from a police car--who can guarantee that one would never be left unlocked? School police so far have not put forward enough specific situations in which use of a shotgun would be the only reasonable recourse; neither have they shown that shotguns have been an answer in other cities. A school is one of those places that call for the least possible use of police force for any given situation.

Safety can be improved through a stronger police presence on and off campus--perhaps including more assistance by the LAPD, whose officers do carry shotguns locked in their trunks. The 75 shotguns that the school police want would cost about $29,000, much less than using more officers. But cheaper is far from better in this case. Shotguns are not the only answer and, in fact, should be the very last answer.