Seattle, WA – On Wednesday, September 17, the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (SAARPR) hosted a rally with the demands of “No Cops in Classrooms! Community Control of the Police!” just before the meeting of the Seattle School Board at the Stanford Education Center. The board was set to deliberate on whether the pilot SEO – “Student Emphasis Officer,” comparable to “Student Resource Officer” — program would move forward at Garfield High School.

This was a program that had already been overwhelmingly rejected by 20,000 signatories in 2020 when a petition to get cops out of schools was organized by Black and brown organizers at FEEST, WA-BLOC, and Black Minds Matter. In 2020, the school board unanimously voted to remove cops in schools. The board at that time included current members Brandon Hersey and Liza Rankin.

There are significant reasons for students to feel unsafe with Seattle Police Department officers. As Rie Guerrero from Pierce County Immigration Alliance (PCIA) and a member of FRSO noted, “SPD had the highest-known number of police officers participate in the January 6, 2021 coup attempt of any police department in the nation, over even LAPD and NYPD,” adding, “the SPD has been under federal oversight since 2012 for using ‘unconstitutional force in one-fifth of all incidents’ which was only lifted last week.”

The Seattle Police Department has earned its federal oversight through many high-profile cases of police killings. Ray Mitchell from Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression stated, “These aren’t people we can trust around our kids, at least the way it is right now. We have no way as a community to trust that we have any control over what the police in this city do.”

The president of the Garfield Black Students Union noted, “It’s not safe to just have these officers on the grounds. In order to have them on the grounds, they have to be held to the utmost standards.”

Aaron Murphy-Paine, whose son Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed outside Garfield High School while trying to break up a fight at lunchtime, spoke passionately to the need for centering of student perspective and voices, stating, “Who’s talking to [students] and asking what do they need? No one is asking them what they need. Everyone is making decisions for them as they see fit.”

Gesturing towards those gathered for the rally, Murphy-Paine said, “Us standing together here is letting them know that the community needs to be part of those decisions that are made by the police department, by the city of Seattle, by the Seattle School Board.”

Representatives from the Seattle Students Union (SSU) spoke to the issue of funding being diverted from schools to cops. Miles Hagopian from Franklin High School said, “Just as important as it is to get rid of police from schools, we need to replace those with people who care about students like mental health counselors, and academic support, and more funding in our schools. But the city, time and time again, refuses to pay up.” Here, he was speaking to the Families Education Preschool Promise (FEPP) levy, a $619 million package that was approved by voters in November 2018. The city of Seattle has failed to approve implementation for half that package.

Leo Palit-Baimonte, the president of SSU, also reiterated what many studies have shown: that having student resource officers on campus does not reduce gun violence or shootings. Increased SROs increased the number of drug and weapon-related offenses, as well as students funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline.

Continuing the story of diverted resources from earlier speakers, a speaker from Anakbayan South Seattle, a student organization focusing on demilitarizing schools said, “Students have been demanding culturally relevant education, but ethnic studies keep getting cut to balance the budget. With the new lunch schedule, students have to give up the time to run clubs, to celebrate culture, and build community. And after sacrificing all of this, what resources do our youth get in return? Heightened police presence, the threat of ICE raids, and more predatory military recruiters.”

Rilan Springer, a former student and now a graduate from Garfield High School, powerfully summed it up, stating, “We have not implemented anything for the students. The students have nothing to work with. It’s their voices that need to be heard, but it’s adults that need to support us, and that hasn’t been happening.” In contrast to the Seattle School Board’s proposed pilot program — which would place an armed officer in the classroom and would also require upturning an existing moratorium on weapons on campus — they made a clear distinction: “We want an SRO outside of the building, but we want community control over that SRO.”

At the Seattle School Board meeting that followed this rally, the board unanimously voted to postpone the School Engagement Officer pilot program and said they would call a special board meeting to discuss the idea.

What the communities impacted most by these decisions are demanding is clear: in order for there to be just solutions that center the safety and well-being of students, their voices need to be an essential part of the solution, including how resources are spent. With community control of the police, they will finally have agency over who is meant to be protecting them, and true accountability should they not measure up.

#SeattleWA #WA #InJusticeSystem #SAARPR #HighSchool

From Fight Back! News via this RSS feed