LAUSD Police Request Shotguns

Re “School Police and Firepower,” editorial, Feb. 11: I wonder if The Times has completely missed the point with respect to the request by school police officers in the LAUSD to add shotguns to their arsenal of approved equipment. The officers have requested that roving patrol cars be equipped with shotguns. These weapons would not be issued to officers permanently assigned to campuses. These cars seldom encounter areas “packed with children.” Much of their work is done at night, after school hours, and in neighborhoods surrounding school campuses.

In the unlikely event that a crowd had gathered at the scene of an LAUSD response, it is also unlikely that a shotgun would be fired into the crowd. LAUSD officers receive the same weapons training as LAPD officers. Why is a shotgun any more likely to be stolen from an LAUSD car than from an LAPD car? The guns are securely locked in specially designed holders within the automobiles.

Both LAPD and LAUSD officers are severely hampered by weapons control regulations which often find them outgunned by lawbreakers. We depend on these people to protect our children in the areas around our school campuses.

CHUCK MERMAN

Glendale

* As a parent representative to the LAUSD School Safety Planning Committee, I have heard most of the public discussion on the shotgun proposal.

The school police chief says his officers have the same training as both LAPD and Sheriff’s Department officers. School police officers do not use their “identical” training on a regular basis, nor are they under the direct supervision of a more experienced officer when they encounter stressful and dangerous situations. If his officers are being placed at such high risk every day, why doesn’t Chief Wesley Mitchell insist that shotguns be deployed in two-person patrol cars? Both the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department require this.

Nighttime burglaries and vandalism are the most frequent crimes occurring at LAUSD schools. The few school police officers assigned to night duty can’t be everywhere at once. If our education dollars are going to be used to reduce school crime, these dollars would be far more effective if they were spent on better security lighting, tighter controls on who has building keys and silent alarms. We would receive more value for our tax dollar if school police were required to participate in student-centered violence and crime prevention programs. Taxpayers must insist that education dollars are not used to duplicate services already provided by other agencies.

HELEN FALLON

Venice