Need for police in schools cited during seminar

Jace Radke

Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 | 9:48 a.m.

Keeping students safe at schools means having police officers on school grounds, according to Dave Grossman, a West Point psychology professor and retired Army Ranger who is an expert in school violence.

"After the Columbine, shooting tens of thousands of police were put in schools, and we saw school violence drop," Dave Grossman said following a four-hour seminar for Clark County School District Police, administrators and other law enforcement authorities at Cashman Center Thursday.

"Now a lot of those officers have been taken back out of the schools, and we've seen an all-time record number of dead in the schools.

"Without a doubt the cause of that is less cops in the school."

According to the National School Safety Center, there were 48 deaths in schools nationwide in the 2003-2004 school year.

Clark County School Police have continued to add officers since the April 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. At Columbine two students took the lives of 12 fellow students and a teacher and injured 23 others before killing themselves.

The Clark County School District has gone from 110 officers in 1999 to 156 currently, but the officers' union is hoping that the Legislature funds 10 to 15 new positions.

"We're about 10-15 officers under what we should be to keep up with the growth of the school district," school police spokesman Darnell Couthen said.

Grossman, who has been a expert witness and consultant in state and federal courts and is the co-author of "Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie, and Video Game Violence," said Clark County has a good police force in place at schools.

"Every community has to decide for itself how to get the police into the schools, but if you have a system in place like you do in Las Vegas, I think you go with the adage of 'if it ain't broke you don't fix it,' " Grossman said. "I can say that if you don't have a force dedicated to schools, there is a terrible temptation to reallocate those assets to other areas."

Locally there are two school police officers assigned to every high school, one for each middle school and roving patrol units, Couthen said.

Through July of this year school police have confiscated 207 knives and 72 guns. In that time period there have also been 450 instances of reported drug possession by students, 710 batteries and 635 arrests.

School Police rely on partnerships with other local law enforcement agencies to provide education and preventive programs at schools.

One program, "Zero Weapons, Zero Tolerance," or "Z-squared," uses assemblies and campus visits from police officers to educate students and parents about gun safety. Another program is Operation Crime Free Schools, which uses a 24-hour anonymous tip line (799-0228) that allows students to give information to school police without fear of retribution.

Random locker searches using dogs that can locate weapons, and metal detectors at special events and sporting events are also employed. The district also conducts "lockdown" drills, designed to keep children in a safe place should violence break out on or near a campus.

About 100 people including several school police officers sat in on Grossman's seminar Thursday.

The Nevada State AFL-CIO, which includes the school district police union, sponsored Grossman's visit.

Danny Thompson, executive director of the Nevada State AFL-CIO, said that Grossman's visit is a way to restart the discussion of keeping children safe at schools.

"We don't want people to forget that this has to be a priority," Thompson said. "We want to be proactive, and we want the discussion to carry over to the Legislature."

The last school shooting in Clark County was at Clark high School in October 1999 when two students, ages 15 and 16, were shot as they stood at the northeast corner of the campus after the school had let out.

Both victims were shot in the arm and survived the attack. The incident was believed to be gang motivated, and the shooter, Maynor Villanueva, then 18, was sentenced to 16 to 40 years in prison.

The deadliest school shooting in Clark County occurred in March 1982 when Valley High School teacher Clarence Piggott Jr. was shot and killed by Patrick Lizotte, a student who Piggott had taken under his wing.

Lizotte wounded two other students before being shot by a police officer. Lizotte survived and is currently serving two life sentences at the Southern Nevada Correctional Facility in Jean.