OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — As students in Osceola County return to the classroom Thursday, a number of parents remain concerned about safety and the role of school resource officers (SROs).
What You Need To Know
- Citizen task force examined role of SROs, made nearly 20 policy recommendations
- School board echoed four of these suggestions in its recommendations, some of which are already in SRO policies
- Ultimate decision rests with the law enforcement agencies
- Review the following law enforcements SRO polices:
Back in January, students’ cell phone videos captured an SRO slamming a Liberty High School teenage girl to the ground. Several parents formed a resident task force, approving nearly 20 recommendations for SROs in April.
“My hope is that as my daughter walks the halls in school, that she sees a person that’s relatable and not someone that’s intimidating,” said Will Fonseca, a father who was a member of the Citizen Advisory Group for School Safety.
Fonseca was pleased to hear the school board echoed four of the group’s suggestions in its recommendations released last month: to continue using trained law enforcement officers as SROs at all public schools, assure all SROs get a minimum 40 hours of basic training, have SROs wear body cameras and have them use a civil citation approach to the maximum extent feasible.
But these are just recommendations, so the ultimate decisions moving forward come down to the three law enforcement agencies providing SROs for the school district: Kissimmee Police Department, Osceola County Sheriff’s Office and St. Cloud Police Department. Each agency has its own SRO policy.
All of the board’s recommendations had already been in place for SROs with St. Cloud Police Department. The Kissimmee Police Department plans to introduce body cameras for all SROs beginning this school year.
But Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez does not plan to introduce body cameras for his SRO, saying that is just not in the budget.
“It’s not cost-effective to pump millions of dollars into a body camera system in a school when, from this case, we had 100 video cameras from (cell phones). And the schools have a real good security system,” he explained.
Lopez said the SRO used an approved training tactic when he restrained the teenage girl. He says before kids’ cell phone cameras started rolling, there was a disruption at the school and the student was not following the SRO’s demands.
“Once the officer or the deputy decides we’re no longer in control of the situation, he’s going to resort to the tactics that’s he’s trained by FDLE,” Sheriff Lopez told Spectrum News 13. “They’re not always going to look pretty, but this was the best way to maintain control of that situation.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the SRO’s use of force.