Officers return to school corridors after ‘defund the police’ failure
Fraternal Order of Police National Vice President Joe Gamaldi has told Fox News Digital on Monday that officers were returning to US schools after ‘the defund the police’ movement was deemed to have failed.
He asserted that crime rates were swelling in America’s public schools as a result of the police-defunding idea that spread across the nation in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by cop Derek Chauvin.
“I think what you’re seeing and the reaction from these school districts is exactly what we’re seeing in almost every major city in this country: Everybody's having buyer's remorse for defunding the police,” Gamaldi stated.
“We had 16 American cities last year have their highest murder rates in recorded history, and now people are quickly backtracking and realizing that police officers provide safety in our communities,” he added.
Montgomery County, Maryland is one of the areas bringing back School Resource Officers (SROs) after a staggering number of offenses were reported between August and February. It was the first time since 2002 that officers had not been present in school hallways.
In total, schools there had 102 sex assaults, 87 assaults, 82 school threats, 76 controlled substance incidents, 57 weapon-related incidents, 57 conflicts, 35 mental health incidents, 28 property crimes, and four robberies, according to 7News.
Things hit rock bottom on January 21 when a shooting took place at Magruder High School in Rockville, Maryland, intensifying calls to bring police back on campus.
In Virginia, the Alexandria City Council has also returned resource officers to hallways, after teachers and parents begged the authorities to reconsider.
Resistance to the radical defund the police movement has grown since 2020 as violent crime has spiked in many areas across the US. Some jurisdictions have seen funding reinstated.
In Los Angeles, police saw their budgets cut by $150 million, resulting in a surge in violent crime.
