The recent school scare in Warren  County has at least two local principals calling for more officers in DeKalb County schools.
DeKalb County schools saw several extra police officers on duty after the Warren County threat, for which Reece Elliott, a 24-year-old man from South Shields in south Tyneside, England, has apparently been arrested.
The anonymous Facebook message, in which Elliot allegedly said he was going to kill his father, steal his guns and kill 200 more people, not only caused a disturbance in Warren County, but in DeKalb and other surrounding counties as well.
Northside Elementary School Principal Dr. Gayle Redmon and DeKalb West School Principal Danny Parkerson told the school board at Thursday night’s regular meeting, held at DeKalb West School, that they feel that more officers are needed at local schools.
At present, DeKalb County has one SRO at DeKalb County High School. The four other schools in the system do not have an SRO on duty.
“While I am aware that the funding for school resource officers is not an item that comes out of the school budget, I would like to make an appeal to the school board to request from our county commissioners, a school resource officer in each of our schools in DeKalb County,” Redmon said.
“While it saddens me that we must make this request, I believe it is imperative that we think in terms of being proactive rather than reactive,” Redmon said.
She said her research into the situation indicated that an officer in each school would reduce the chance of a teacher or student being harmed by an intruder.
“Research does indicate that a school resource officer would be instrumental in protecting students and staff in the event that we were to ever to have an intruder in our school who intended to do harm to students or an adult,” she informed the board. “I am aware of only one incident in which an SRO officer was killed in a school shooting. Most of the attacks in schools occur where there is not an SRO present. In instances where there has been an SRO present during a violent attack at school, the officer has been able to significantly limit the harm to innocent people.”
Redmon went on to give specific examples of incidents in which an officer on duty prevented harm from coming to the student body.
“In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for example, in 2011 a student entered a school with two pipe bombs in his backpack. He then shot and wounded the school resource officer. But the officer was able to stop that student before he could do any further harm,” Redmon said.
“In our own state of Tennessee in Sullivan County, a 62-year-old man came in and confronted a principal,” Redmon continued. “He put a gun in the principal's face. The school resource officer intervened and was able to calm the man down at least until more officers could arrive, at which time that man did draw the gun on the SRO and was shot by those officers.”
“Examples like that could go on and on.” she noted.
Redmon said she felt that every school needs an officer on duty.
“I believe an SRO is needed at every school. I believe they would be able to protect our schools. I think they could coordinate the response better for other police resources and maybe help us to address crime and disorder problems as they occur and further help prevent such crimes.” the principal said.
“I believe the presence of SROs in our schools would be invaluable an immeasurable if they were able to save even one life,” Redmon concluded.
Parkerson agreed.
“I concur with Mrs. Redmon,” he said. “Schools have changed. Our society has changed. An officer in the schools just has a calming affect if nothing else. I've been to ball games and had SROs attend our ball games and it makes an unruly fan ruly.”
First District board member John David Foutch said the school board was already considering ways to improve security at county schools before the Warren County incident.
“The day after Sandy Hook, we started working on this,” Foutch said. “We've talked to local law enforcement departments. In our own county, we've gone a long way. We've got people interested in taking those jobs. What we are lacking mainly is funding. If you will talk to your county commissioners, we'll talk to our legislators. To get this funded and off the ground, we need people at home standing behind us. This is something we're trying to make happen but we can't make it happen on our own. We need everybody's help,” Foutch informed those in attendance.
Board chairman Johnny Lattimore concurred with Foutch’s assessment.
“In the workshop prior to this meeting, we were already discussing some of these issues. I think Mr. (Mark) Willoughby is going to be checking into the costs, and we will be making recommendations. Some of our board members will be attending the ‘Day on the Hill’ (at the state capitol) in just a few days and they will be talking to some of our legislators about such things as being able to help fund some of those (officers) and a lot of other things we need to do to upgrade our security systems at the schools,” the chairman said.
Fourth District member Billy Miller suggested holding a workshop on the subject, and proposed that the public be notified and invited so that locals could have a hand in the discussion.
“I do think it is a community responsibility for us to look at this,” Miller said. “I would make a proposal that we have a workshop to come up with solutions. It needs to be an open workshop to include the sheriff's department, the police department, first responders, local businessmen, and the community. If we come together as a community I think we can get way ahead on this problem. If we have the community involved in this, maybe we can come up with a solution and maybe be able to put more SROs into the school system. It's not going to solve all our problems but it's a start in the right direction. I would like to see this board step up for the community and have the community involved,” Miller said.
Local business owner and parent Chris Allen also addressed the board with an idea on how to fund more officers.
“If every working citizen in DeKalb County who works in the county would commit to having one penny an hour deducted off of their pay, that would fund an officer for each school in the county. I don't know how difficult that would be to do, but it wouldn't have to come out of anybody's budget. I don't know how it could be implemented or even if it could be a private thing instead of through the state or the county,” Allen admitted.
Lattimore replied that  Allen should contact county commissioners and state legislators about his proposal, as the school board has no control over such matters.
“That would be something that would have to be taken up by the county commission or the state legislature,” Lattimore said.
“However the SROs are funded, the taxpayers will have to pay for that. Right now all of our county taxes are through property taxes so if the county commission pays for it, then that's probably how they would do it is add to the county property taxes. I recommend that you talk to your county commissioners and maybe you can send in an email to your state representatives too, and let them know about your idea. They are the ones who actually tax us, so that's where that would have to come from.”
The school board scheduled a workshop at 6 p.m. on Feb. 25 to discuss the matter of further school security.