School Police: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

When I was in high school our SRO tricked a kid into bumming him a cigarette, kid got charged and suspended. At the time it seemed funny that the kid was so dumb but looking back now its insane that there was a cop in our schools tricking kids, not even dangerous or violent kids, into incriminating themselves. The thought that the SRO was intended to be there to protect the children and was instead giving them criminal records is sickening.

Funny how there’s always money to harden security at school but never enough when it comes to funding actual teaching and growth

“Kids deserve to be annoying without being arrested” might be the most truthful, REAL and IMPORTANT sentence said out loud on any medium outlet EVER!!

John saying "Oh no my good Bitch" is the greatest thing I've ever heard

As someone from Europe it’s absolutely baffling to me that in the US there are a) so many school shootings to the point that b) you have police officers at school. It’s like watching a story from a parallel universe where ducks are horses and horses are ducks.

Officers aren't there to make anything safer. They're there so if something terrible happens, the school district is not blamed. It's not the students' line of defense, it's the district's.

I graduated in 2016, and my high school had ‘campus police’. They would generally stand at corners not looking at any of us, just muttering into walkie-talkies, and I couldn’t tell you a single one of their names- but I’ll never forget when one of the ‘problem kids’ got upset about getting a detention, and the teacher called the campus police, who arrested her in the middle of class. She clearly had something going on but nobody ever seemed concerned about why a student might constantly be yelling and starting fights. And for the record, I had classes with three white ‘problem kids’, and never saw the teachers call campus police on any of them.

My son was traumatized by an SRO in high school and NEVER went back. My son went to his counselor because he was depressed and the SRO IMMEDIATELY 51/50'd him even though.he said he wasn't thinking of harming himself. Our local hospital was full, so they took him to one an hour away without my knowledge. I didn't know anything was wrong until he called me from the hospital. Since it was a mandatory 72 HR hold, the hospital had a psychiatrist come from an hour away to evaluate him because the staff didn't think he needed to be there, but a psychiatrist had to sign off on it. Since it was a Friday, my son would have had to spend 3 days in an ER for no reason if the hospital hadn't been so kind to get someone to release him early. One bad call from an SRO scared my teen from trying to seek help and he stayed home schooled the rest of the year. We got him the help he needed for his depression, including seeing a psychiatrist. He is good now, but he still has panic attacks around authority figures and he is now 20.

That woman wasn't stalling for time, she was deciding if telling the truth was worth destroying her career.

I was suspended from school for calling our SRO a "dirty pig" after he came into the girl's bathroom while we were changing for gym class unannounced. Two stalls had no doors and an entire class was in there getting changed. But I was the one who deserved to be detained and suspended. Makes sense.

I was mercilessly bullied in school—particularly in Middle School in the hallway & my Art Class. This occurred EVERY day; I finally made the bad judgment mistake by bringing a jackknife to Art class, one of the bullies went into my bag, found the knife, ANNOUNCED what I’d done—and my “weapon” was confiscated. Shortly thereafter, the Assistant Principal summoned me to his office. I wasn’t disciplined, someone on faculty knew my intention was to try & protect myself and he just wanted to talk to me. He did—and did so very gently. He let me know that HE knew sth was going on, he was watching—and that I should come to him instead. The bullying lessened (didn’t stop) but I was grateful for his efforts

My school officer was arrested a few years after I graduated for pedophilia so... That was great

Republicans: “It’s not a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem” Us: “Okay, can we at least have more money for mental health programs and intervention?” Republicans: “No, that’s socialism”

As a foreigner, having armed officers in campus and students acknowledging them so casually is extremely disturbing

You know that uneasy feeling you get around cops, like when one follows you for a few blocks while driving, or really whenever someone in a flak jacket carrying a gun is out in public, that’s great for creating a learning environment

“I just thought someone would look at it and think ‘this is so cool- a legand was here’” just broke me.

When I was in HS a kid we knew was thrown down, handcuffed and taken to school office while everyone looked on (it was during lunch). We later found out he was acting “weird” bc he was diabetic and was low in sugar. Pretty aggressive tactic for a child who just needed medical attention

At my high school our SRO would stand in front of the stairs to confiscate food people were carrying and throw it away in the morning because people weren't supposed to have food outside of the cafeteria. I grew up poor, so I qualified for free breakfast and lunch - without it I couldn't eat on any given school day. But I also lived rurally and my bus was often late, arriving literally right before the bell rang. I would run and grab food and an orange juice from the cafeteria and try to book it to bio, eating on the way, and she started standing at the staircase I had to take to get there. Every. Morning. Because preventing a potential mess for the janitors was more important than children being fed. I learned quickly though. I started only choosing bagels in the morning, which came with a sealed container of cream cheese, so I could stuff them in my backpack before I turned the corner to the stairs. She would try to stop me, I'd hold up my empty hands to show her I had no food then race up the stairs and eat in class. I'm really thankful Mr. Fabian, my bio teacher, didn't care that I ate in class, because that would have been a long semester of going hungry. I graduated 11 years ago and I still think about it all the time.

Having police officers in schools on a regular basis is just another thing that seems batshit insane to lot of people outside America. I mean... Cops patrolling in schools harassing disabled and POC kids, this is some high level dystopian stuff here.

I am autistic and was arrested in 6th grade by an sro. It destroyed my whole families life not just mine, my parents divorced and moved over halfway across the country so I didn't go to jail for not standing in line for a substitute, ruined my intellectual development lost all my special classes and my scholarship to college I had won as a part of a mensa contest I ended up dropping out. Schools don't need cops kids don't need cops.