More police isn’t the answer after Texas shooting, experts say – By Char Adams (NBC News) / May 31, 2022
The Uvalde school shooting renewed calls for more police in schools. Experts say this is not only ineffective, but also invites problems for students of color.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District in Texas has its own police department, complete with four officers, a detective and security staff who patrol the campus and its entrances. This didn’t prevent a gunman from killing 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School last week.
Despite this inability to stop the shooter’s hour-long siege, the attack has renewed demands to increase police presence in schools as a solution to shooting incidents. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, continued the pattern when he called for more armed school police, describing them as “the most effective tool for keeping kids safe.”
However, experts say that increasing police in schools is not effective in preventing or stopping mass shootings. Furthermore, adding more police officers to schools, they say, would contribute to disproportionate levels of punishment and criminalization on Black and Latino students, and would waste an opportunity to increase security without defaulting to added police presence.
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