SHOULD POLICE OFFICERS BE REMOVED FROM CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

A national campaign by protestors, Defund the Police, has proposed reducing police budgets and locally to remove police officers from Chicago Public Schools. Photo by Wendell Hutson.
A national campaign by protestors, Defund the Police, has proposed reducing police budgets and locally to remove police officers from Chicago Public Schools. Photo by Wendell Hutson.

Should Police Officers Be Removed From Chicago Public Schools?

BY WENDELL HUTSON

Contributing Writer

The death of George Floyd has sparked a national campaign by protestors to reduce funding to police departments and reallocate those funds in other areas including removing officers from Chicago Public Schools.

But by doing so, it would make communities and particularly public schools, more vulnerable to violent crime, contends Janelle Dowell, a 47-year-old Chatham wife and mother.

“Police officers were put into schools because of crime problems and they are still needed. We would be going backwards if we were to remove them,” explained Dowell, who worked 10 years as a civilian Chicago Police Department employee. “I think it would [be] a horrible move to defund the police. Nothing would get done when it comes to reform.”

Dowell, whose 12-year-old daughter, Kristin, attends James McDade Classical School in Chatham, added that everyone needs to be “served and protected” and while she said there are rogue officers, “the vast majority of police officers are good cops doing a very difficult job.”

CPS officials said Local School Councils determine which schools receive police officers, who provide safety and security assistance to staff security guards.

“Last summer, the district empowered Local School Councils to determine if SROs would be assigned to their schools because we firmly believe that elected local leaders are best suited to make these decisions for their own communities,” said Jadine Chou, chief of safety and security for CPS.

Community leaders said reallocation of police funds is something worth considering, but not disbanding the police department completely.

“Police presence is still needed at schools to help maintain law and order. Demolishing the entire police department is totally out [of] the question, but there could be ways to reallocate monies that would better serve the community, like investing more into the CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy) program,” said the Rev. Richard Wooten, a retired Chicago police officer and president of the nonprofit Greater Chatham Alliance. “A lot of money is being spent on overtime for police officers going to court to lock up the same people, and that could be better spent on community programs within the police department.”

Wooten, a Chatham resident and pastor at Gathering Point Universal Ministries in Auburn Gresham, added that creating some type of parent patrol at schools, might be a good idea too.

“These are parents who know the students and the students may better relate to a familiar face [as] opposed to a stranger,” Wooten added. “But at the end of the day, any changes made, need to involve the community,” he said.

The 2020 budget for the CPD is $1.8 billion, according to the city’s Budget Office, which includes $153 million for legal settlements. In 2018, the city spent $113 million to settle lawsuits against police officers. As the second largest police department in the country, the CPD is comprised of 13,500 police officers. New York, which is the largest populated city, has the largest police department, with 36,023 officers.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has pushed back on the Defund the Police campaign and said taking monies away from law enforcement is not the solution to police misconduct.

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate action at this time. I think that the people in our neighborhoods want and have been begging for more police support,” the mayor said.

But as it pertains to removing police officers from schools, the mayor said she supports the current process of letting Local School Councils make that decision.

“Local control by the Local School Council is the right place for this discussion to be,” she told the Chicago Citizen.

However, not all parents disagree with the suggestion about removing police officers from schools.

“After my son graduated from high school, I had a hard time getting him to continue his education because he was fearful of police officers at schools,” explained Monty Milhouse, 53, a Roseland resident. “My son graduated from Fenger High School [in Roseland] and was a good kid, but had a bad encounter one time with a police officer, who he said harassed him and his friends one day after school because the officer thought they were gang members. That one incident six years ago has changed the way he feels about police officers and why to this day he does not trust law enforcement.”

Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), whose ward includes many West Side neighborhoods, is a retired Chicago police officer, and said officers are needed at schools, but should be used on a limited basis.

“If we can keep officers in schools and not used as part of CPS’ disciplinary process, that would be a good thing,” said Taliaferro. “I see no reason why we should pull officers out of schools.”

And with so many school shootings that have taken place across the country prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said officers are needed on site at schools.

“Imagine the chaos at schools should an active shooter incident occur and there’s no uniform police officer on the ground,” added Taliaferro. “We need to make sure we are putting our children in an environment where they can concentrate on learning and not be at school worried about getting shot.”

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