Police issued X-26 Taser
An interesting and, for the moment, civil debate has ensued between North Carolina’s Guilford County law enforcement and school officials.
On one hand, we have the district. Tasked with providing a nurturing and safe learning environment, it has contracted with various local law enforcement agencies to help them in this endeavor, placing them in just about every middle and high school campus.
And for it’s part, the local police departments are more than willing to help schools remain the secure and sound places of learning they should be. Where the two entities are disagreeing, however, is the method.
When the Guilford County Sherrif’s Office began arming its deputies with Tasers in 2007, it also went to the school resource officers. And this year, two other police departments that the district works with, provided their SRO’s with Tasers, too, heightening a percolating sense of unease that educators and families have felt about having these weapons on school sites.
It certainly didn’t help, when an SRO used a Taser on a female high school student earlier this year, nor that days later another SRO suffered injuries after breaking up a student fight because, according the sherrif’s office, the deputy wanted to avoid further controversy and abstained from using the device.
School board member Sandra Alexander told the News & Record, the majority of the board and the public don’t like the idea of Tasers in schools, with the board extending an invitation to local law enforcement officials to speak about the matter at an upcoming board meeting.
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