Three Years After #DefundThePolice, Schools Are Bringing Cops Back to Campus

By Maya Pottiger | Word In Black Photograph courtesy of risingthermals/Flickr This story is part of “All Those ‘Racial Reckoning’ Promises,” Word In Black’s series exploring the pledges made to the Black community following the Summer of George Floyd and what organizations and leaders can still do now to promote racial equity and justice. (WIB) – In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, calls to defund the police rang across the nation during the summer of 2020. While few cities took swift action, many school districts — integral community hubs where young minds are nurtured, and where kids spend the bulk of their time — began to reevaluate the presence of armed personnel patrolling the hallways. In September 2019, eight months before Floyd’s murder, the& Bureau of Justice Statistics& reported nearly 25,000 school resource officers were assigned to primarily K-12 schools.& Those numbers slowly started to change in districts around the country as a response to calls to defund the police. In Washington, D.C., for example, the D.C. Council unanimously voted in 2021 to reduce the number of SROs in both public and charter schools beginning July 2022, with the plan to end the Metropolitan Police Department’s School Safety Division...