School Board Votes Unanimously To Abolish Police, Names Resolution After George Floyd
The school board in one of the most left-wing cities in America, which also happens to be one of the most dangerous cities in America, just voted unanimously to eliminate the presence of police officers at its schools.
Oakland, California, which supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by a ratio of nearly 19-1 in the 2016 presidential election, has long been a breeding ground for insane leftist ideas.
The “George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate Oakland Schools Police Department” represents the latest example.
Because the board of the Oakland Unified School District voted Wednesday night to defund the department, “10 sworn police officers and administrators” will be removed from the city’s schools, The Mercury News reported.
The $2.5 million spent on those law enforcement officials “is instead expected to be redirected toward other student support services and restorative justice efforts,” the report said.
Sadly, the situation in Oakland is not unique. Just last week, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously to remove police officers from the Mile High City’s schools by the end of 2021.
School board officials in Oakland as well as Denver failed to consider the consequences of removing police officers from their schools in their hastiness to comply with the dictates of political correctness and mob rule.
They had better hope that no mass shootings take place at their schools. Should such a tragedy occur, children would be sitting ducks with no school resource officer on the scene to keep them safe.
While the officer on duty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, obviously failed to rise to the occasion when a mass shooting erupted at his school, most school resource officers go to work every day committed to keeping the children they serve safe.
The moves in Oakland and Denver come at a time when major cities, including New York, have moved to “defund the police” in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. The advocates of this absurdity fail to realize the foolishness of blaming all police officers everywhere for Floyd’s death.
While Oakland has proudly established a reputation as a sanctuary city for illegal aliens, its schools have now become sanctuaries for deranged individuals looking to inflict as much harm as possible on innocent students and teachers.
If not for the presence of a school resource officer at Forest High School in Ocala, Florida, on April 20, 2018, an unspeakable tragedy could have unfolded on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting in Colorado.
When a student shooter opened fire, injuring a 17-year-old student, the school resource officer jumped into action and prevented the further loss of life.
This is Deputy Jim Long, the school resource officer who stopped the shooter at Forest High today in #Marion County. @MCSOFlorida says he “recognized what we had at the time,” rushed to engage the shooter, and did not hesitate #WESH pic.twitter.com/Vnri35BZHs
— Bob Hazen WESH (@HazenWESH) April 20, 2018
A similar chain of events played out in Dixon, Illinois, a month later, with a school resource officer saving the day after a gunman opened fire.
School Resource Officer Mark Dallas charged at the shooter, who fired at him. Dallas returned fire, injuring the shooter and preventing another mass shooting from taking place.
This is @DixonPolice SRO officer Mark Dallas, whom students are crediting with stopping a student armed with a gun at Dixon High School this morning. https://t.co/1vuDPYCYs9 pic.twitter.com/XCBdfAKbla
— WQAD (@wqad) May 16, 2018
If the Oakland school board officials had bothered to do a little research, maybe they would have reconsidered their rash decision to purge resource officers from their city’s schools. Rather than looking at the facts, they listened to the anarchists chanting “defund the police.”
Everyone in America has a right to be mad about the death of George Floyd. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater by defunding the police, in schools or entire cities, will only make matters worse.
Rather than virtue signaling, Oakland leaders should work to lower the city’s astronomically high crime rate. Hopefully, if and when they finally decide to do that, they will see the value of having police officers firsthand, both in schools and in the community at large.
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