After Uvalde shooting, some Fort Worth council members want police in schools
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Some Fort Worth city council members want to put police officers in every elementary school after seeing what happened in Uvalde.
The Fort Worth Police Department briefed members on its School Resource Unit during a council work session Tuesday afternoon. They wanted to better understand the current role of school resource officers (SROs) and what could be improved.
"Understand that our SROs are some of the best trained police officers on the force," said Assistant Chief Joseph Sparrow.
Right now, there are nearly 70 officers in FWPD's School Resource Unit. The department contracts with six school districts within city limits, but the bulk of those officers cover Fort Worth ISD.
The SROs go through de-escalation training and are all certified mental health peace officers.
"So they've gone through extra training to make sure they're able to identify students who are maybe in crisis or something like that," said Lt. Brian Clouse.
They are also taught how to respond to an active shooter and practice those scenarios every summer.
SROs are staffed in every middle and high school in FWISD, but there are none in elementary schools. Sparrow said it would take tens of millions of dollars and more than 200 additional officers to do so.
Fort Worth City Council Member Chris Nettles said the city can't let money be an issue when it comes to saving lives.
"I don't care if you have to add 500," Nettles said. "… With just the recent tragedy, it wasn't a high school. Wasn't a middle school. It was an elementary school."
The council has a joint meeting with the FWISD school board coming up, and Nettles wants to add this to the agenda.
FWPD also plans to reach out to all 13 school districts within city limits to figure out how to better support their safety needs.
"Dollars should not affect the safety of our children," said Chief Neil Noakes. "The number one priority for the Fort Worth PD is safety, and there's no group of people within our community that's more susceptible, more innocent, more in need of protection than our children. Our babies. Absolutely priority number one… It's not just about numbers. We're talking about lives and students, and we're going to do everything we possibly can in the City of Fort Worth to make sure what's happening in other areas does not happen in the City of Fort Worth."
Noakes also said the department is thinking outside the box on this issue to come up with new ideas.
"I wish I could come today and say we have all the answers," Noakes said. "We don't, but we're looking into it."
