The Wichita school board’s recently completed memorandum of understanding with the Wichita Police Department on school resource officers gives police the sole authority to determine how and when Tasers are deployed in schools. This deferral to police on the actual rules of engagement probably makes sense: Why would school officials micromanage officers’ use of standard equipment they normally carry, whether batons or Tasers?
Still, dealing with adolescent teens in a school setting raises the bar of sensitivity and good judgment. Because Tasers are potentially lethal — a homeless woman in Oklahoma City died last week after having been stunned by a Taser — police should use Tasers on students only when absolutely necessary.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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30 Comments
LOL – heaven forbid we allow teachers to paddle a kid in school….but let’s go ahead and taser them.
Stupid public school officials.
If these young hooligans were resisting arrest in public, they would be tased. There is no special protection just because of their location.
WPD has very clear guidelines on taser use…and I don’t believe one of the criteria is where the perpetrator happens to be to afford “special” treatment. If they act like a criminal, simple, treat ‘em like a criminal.
You either want law enforcement or you don’t. If you are resisting a law enforcement officer then you should have to deal with the consequences.
Forget using Taser on students. How about Taser on Demand?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/23/ap/strange/main2844144.shtml
Over a decade ago – Oklahoma City Board of Education broached a topic of removing all threatening-type students from school.
That concept was quickly shot down?
Know why?
It was determined over 60% of the students in question were either Hispanic or black.
They didn’t want to take a chance of being called racial profilers.
Tell me that makes sense?
Pretty sad that we live in a society today where tasers are even a consideration in schools. I remember when I was in high school (granted, an all girl Catholic school), there was one fight the entire 4 years I was there and the janitor broke it up. Never even had a security guard. It was just expected that we were to behave ourselves…period.What the heck has happened in the last 35 yrs? I hear teachers saying all the time how much the kids have changed and how they want to get out of teaching because it is such a thankless, frustrating job. Even the parents are hell to deal with.When I go to other countries, IU don’t see the same problems. I was on a ferry with about 100 junior high kids in Mexico and they were so well behaved that it made me ashamed to be an American.What’s wrong with us?
Mary – short answer – liberalism.
How so, GS? Does outlawing discrimination, giving equal right to women and minorities, and pushing environmental policies to save the earth contributing to the violence in American children?
Give me examples, please.
Did you read my former post about Oklahoma City?
No I didn’t..I’ve got to go to work, so give me some examples and I’ll read them tonight. Have a good day.
My answer to your question Mary:
Lack of parental discipline.
Parents demonstrating lack of respect for authority to their children. (Question authority, dude)
Coddling of children by overprotective parents that produces selfish brats.
Moral relativism and lack of clear standards of right and wrong.
Kids are bringing guns to school in the “gun free” zone killing each other.
Kids are being more aggresive and disrespectful in schools.
And we are sitting here arguing about Police Officers having Tasers in schools?
I read an article earlier this week about new protocols for treating tasered individuals that is cutting the death rates. I think they should start enacting these protocols right away for every department. Usually I’d say wait till the research is complete, but not in this case. The treatment wouldn’t hurt anyone so go for it.
It involves cooling and giving sedatives to those they use it on.
I could not agree with you more, Outlander. Evidence is seen every day, say at restaurants where kids throw things, yell, generally misbehave and the parents in a “loving tone” suggest that dear little ones behave.
Sheeesh. Kids are being taught to respect nothing, obey no social guidelines at all, and to think only of themselves. That behavior obviously manifests itself and we have armed police officers in schools.
Does anyone remember the terror of being summoned to the vice principal’s office? Just the threat of that alone was enough to make students behave a few years back. Now, the students scoff, swear and ignore such threats, and then fight with police.
Sad state of affairs, and the blame can be placed solely and squarely on the permissive parents who are scared to discipline their children.
Pepper spray has killed people that have an allergy to it. In the past people have been killed when physically subdued by police. Maybe we should just expect the school officers to deal with the physically reisisting/violent kid by asking him nicely, in a non-confrontational way, to behave. If that doesn’t work the officer could ask again, but nicer. If that doesn’t work I am sure there is a school councilor or psychologist that could be summoned. That way the kid will not have to deal with the consequences of their own actions and we don’t have to trust officers to make a responsible descion about the use of force.
This is a second attempt – sorry if it’s a dupe:
When I was in High School in the late 70s, we had all kinds of guns at school. Nearly every pickup had a gun rack with weapons in plain sight. The idea of school as a “gun free zone” would have been laughed at by students, teachers, and the public.
So what has happened that we have to have police in the schools now?
Poverty? We had poor kids in school then, and they seemed to find the restraint not to bust a cap in anyone.
Racial tension? We had a mixed race school. I can remember only one racial incident, between a Vietnamese immigrant and a black kid. And it lasted all of 15 seconds and then it was over and done with.
So what is the answer?
It’s a lack of respect for others that isn’t taught in today’s home. Too much coddling and ’self esteem’ issues for today’s kids. Parents need to buck up and be decent parents. I know I certainly didn’t like the consequences that came from my parents when I misbehaved. Today’s kids aren’t taught that every choice has a consequence. Children need rules, structure and at times, discipline. I don’t advocate beating a child but a swift swat to the buttocks never hurt anyone or diminished my self esteem. I did something wrong and there was a punishment for it. (like stealing pennies from dad’s penny jar so I could buy cinammon toothpicks from the kid down the street) I still remember that oh-so-long walk to get a switch from the tree that was going to be used on me. Tell me that didn’t make me want to behave! We have licenses to drive, why not a license to have children? You buy a toaster you get a 10 page instruction booklet. You have a kid and well, good luck with that! Perhaps we need parenting classes, I don’t know. I sometimes want to smack some kids’ parents that’s for sure.
All i have to say is i would rather be tazed than shot by our trigger happy officers…
And if your child acts up in the grocery store and you pop his little butt a good one to get him back in line, you have to worry about some idiot calling CPS on you.
Don’t even TRY to justify yourself with CPS. If your hand came in contact with that child, you’re screwed.
Dr. Spoc (sp?) admitted he was wrong. Why can’t parents get that thru their heads. Spoiling kids doesn’t help anyone or anything. Get back to tough love. Set some damn rules and limits in your kid’s life. AND ENFORCE THEM!!!!!
Most of y’all are close to my age or older. How would you as say a 10 year old be treated if word came from school that you were back talking (much less physically threatening) a teacher? My butt would have been so red I wouldn’t have sat for a month. But today’s kids? Just the opposite. Most likely the ‘parent’ would call and bitch to the administrator that their child had been mistreated.
‘Parents’ need to get a grip and realize that little Johnny isn’t an angel, but a little asshole, and by the ‘parent’s’ doing.
It’s a sad commentary on our society that our schools require weapons-bearing order-keepers.
Kids watch way to much TV, including violence-glorifying movies (I notice Fox seems to show more of this drek than Turner). TV watching is asocial per se. I mean, if some guys are watching a game and yakkin it up, that’s social. But if people’s eyes are glued to the screen, and they’re not talking to each other, that’s asocial passivity.
TV is an advanced form of one-way communication. It doesn’t generate active dialog by the consumers back to the message-senders. That’s unnatural.
Americans have been sucked into two-parents working either to buy things they don’t need, or to overcome declining real wages.
Of course too many parents divorce.
You can’t raise kids to be civil and productive if they are left alone every afternoon.
Busing has been a disaster. This treats kids like trucked cattle. It wastes an hour a day. If they were attending neighborhood schools they could be doing after-school programs.
Our schools are failing to prepare kids for college in an economy whose good jobs, in the vast majority, require a college degree. ACT, Inc. the college admissions test administrator, has weighed in on this. They’re arguing that the core curriculum, and even core+ more advanced courses, just aren’t cutting it.
http://www.act.org/news/releases/2007/05-15-07.html
I overheard a grandmotherly teacher saying that last week was her swansong. She said she loved her kids, but the bureaucracy ground her down.
As far as trouble-maker adolescents go, in the old days, there was a remedy. It was called, “You’re expelled. Go out and get a job.” I remember some kids who left school at 15, white kids that is. Most Mexicans left at age 12-14 and did ag work. Bob Knight used to say he was the first college graduate in his family, and that his father left school after 8th grade. In my grandparent’s generation education ended at 8th grade for the vast majority of Americans. But they became productive adults.
Children are guaranteed a right to an education through 12th grade. But, turn it around. If they are uttely disdainful of school learning, and disrupt it for others, is there any provision in the state or federal consitution that guarantees this destructive-behavioral “right”? No.
Of course, we have a compulsory attendance law, requiring school attendance to age 18 (i.e. through 17) but that’s bad policy. It is forcing adolescents who don’t want to be in school, who show their disdain by open defiance of teachers, and harrassing students who want to learn, to be in a place that does them no good whatsoever, impairs other children’s learning, and grinds teachers down. This is a lose-lose-lose situation.
This isn’t correctable by throwing more money at schools, or by hiring more social-service personnel, “counseling” all the troublemakers, hiring a half-dozen “friends”, etc. The plain fact is, there are adolescents who don’t want to read, write or do math, and there is nothing you can do to rewire their brains to make them want to read, write and do math. And if they don’t want to do it, they’re going to make life intolerable for those who do. Which is exactly what we are seeing.
So we need jobs-training programs, work permits and school-attendance exemptions for 13+ year olds. We don’t want to just dump them on the streets, because this would encourage criminal activity. Instead they can be given jobs now being performed by illegal immigrants, as those immigrants are deported, and employers become short-handed for workers.
We are by all means still primitive in our behavior, more reactive to expressing our emotions then our logics.Failure of laws is hind sight of those primitive ways.We took the ability of parents to discipline their own children away by court actions and now we are seeing the consequence.People are now afraid of doing something wrong to take the actions against a wrong occurrence.Today we are reaping what we sowed.
Attending school only makes sense if you value education. Rather than force these disruptive kids to attend school as we now currently do, why don’t we do something like the following: guarantee to every resident 18 years of schooling. Unlike now, “school years” would not have to be concurrent. If a kid acts up, he is dismissed from school (i.e. expelled) until s/he comes to the conclusion that education is a valuable thing. The kid (or adult as the case may be) can apply to return to school at any time, but s/he must provide an adequate resume for the time spent away from class – in essence showing that the kid has “wised up” and is now a more responsible citizen. It may take a few years out in the “real” world, but I’m sure many would eventually come around.
GS,”It was determined over 60% of the students in question were either Hispanic or black.”
WOW! I’m surprised you didn’t get chewed up over that one. But it’s a valid point. We can’t discipline the little thugs because of their race? That suks!
I’m sure it’s been said, but I believe wholeheartedly that the reason for the problems in school right now is because teachers no longer have the authority to spank. That means they have no authority, and the kids know it!! I was never spanked in school, but I grew up knowing that it was an option.
I got spanked in the first grade for turning around in my seat to watch the boy in the desk behind me draw a picture instead of payng attention to the teacher. I’ll never forget how humiliated I was…obviously I never forgot the incident.I think we ruined our kids with the whole “self esteem feel good about myself” movement…what I see too often is a lot of young adults who are arrogant and narcissistic. Sometimes it’s good to be humbled and made to feel guilty when we screw up, that’s how we learn right from wrong and are forced to think about the needs of others, not just our own.I went to a Catholic school, not only did we stand at attention when a nun or priest walk into the room, no one would have dreamed of talking back…and spanking was rare, because we had the fear of God put into us by the nuns and that was enough to keep us in line!Today’s parents are way too permissive and/or parents are out of control…too many kids growing up in really dysfuctional environments. We reap what we sow…that’s for sure.I think parenting and relationship classes should be mandatory all 4 years of high school, everyone needs those skills.
Anybody that fights with or refuses to comply with the orders of a police officer should be tased or brought into compliance by use of whatever force is necessary to do so. This should be left to the judgement of the officer and not to other “second guessers” and, unless the officer is clearly out of line with the use of force, the officer should be left alone to do his job.
“GS,”It was determined over 60% of the students in question were either Hispanic or black.”
WOW! I’m surprised you didn’t get chewed up over that one. But it’s a valid point. We can’t discipline the little thugs because of their race? That suks!”
The problem here is not that the black or Mexican kid cannot be disciplined but because in most cases, they are diciplined far more harshly than white kids who commit similar acts. White kids who do pretty bad things rarely get suspended from school much less arrested by the police and hauled to court. It is usually handled in the Principal’s office and goes no further whereas the black kid is far more likely to get a long suspension or a court referal for the same or even lessor offense.
“I’m sure it’s been said, but I believe wholeheartedly that the reason for the problems in school right now is because teachers no longer have the authority to spank. That means they have no authority, and the kids know it!! I was never spanked in school, but I grew up knowing that it was an option. ”
I got many ass whuppins when I was in Sunnyside Elementary but after going to Jr High, they quit whippin. Whippins don’t work on older kids.
I admit it. Once I accidentally hit myself with my own Taser. I had shut it off, but forgot those things operate off a capacitor (they’re still “hot” for a moment after they’re shut off). Mine throws 950,000 volts. OH BABY!!!! The “hit” was only for a split second, but it sure got my attention.
From my own experience, I think Tasers should be standard issue for all teachers. The only thing you want from the business end of a Taser is to get away from the thing.
Having to use tasers on school kids is just a symtom of the problem, it does nothing to solve the problem of why tasers are being used in the first place..and the problem is what we need to work on, not on arming the teachers.