VENTURA COUNTY ROUNDUP : Countywide : Police Agencies Get School Safety Grants

Two law enforcement agencies in Ventura County have received federal community policing grants to beef up their roles in public school safety.

The Sheriff’s Department will receive as much as $250,000 to help pay salaries and benefits for two school resource officers for three years. The Oxnard Police Department will receive as much as $125,000 to cover costs for one school resource officer, also for three years.

“Being on the offense rather than the defense is always good police work,” said U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), an advocate for the grants.

“While we’re much more fortunate in Ventura County, in most of its cities, than the rest of the country, the fact still remains . . . you cannot be complacent and rest on your laurels,” Gallegly said Friday. “You can never let your guard down.”

Oxnard police and the Sheriff’s Department were two of 29 law enforcement agencies throughout California included in this round of COPS in Schools grants from the U.S. Department of Justice. Of 1,300 applicants nationwide, 319 agencies were awarded grants. Gallegly said he expects some other police departments in the county to be considered in the next round of grants.

The grants announced Friday are the latest in a series of programs that would give law enforcement agencies a greater presence on school campuses.

Last year’s massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.--and some copycat bomb threats in the weeks that followed--led to heightened school safety programs in communities throughout the nation, including Southern California.

The Ventura Police Department this school year dedicated six new full-time officers to patrolling schools in the Ventura Unified School District, up from only two full-time officers last year.

Earlier this year, the Sheriff’s Department had hoped to secure a $500,000 state grant to improve school safety. Sheriff Bob Brooks had planned to spend the money on on-campus surveillance cameras, security phones and radio systems, as well as aerial campus surveillance missions and an armored police vehicle.

Ultimately, Brooks said, the grant money went instead to Los Angeles and San Francisco counties. Brooks said his department has applied for a number of other grants and still hopes to make some of the proposed purchases.

Brooks said the COPS grant most likely can only be used to hire school resource officers, but he said such officers are valuable assets.