PERU – Peru Community Schools are set to create their own in-house police department with certified officers in an effort to protect the district's five school buildings.
The Peru School Board Monday voted to approve a resolution establishing the Peru Community School Corporation Police Department, which will be up and running by the 2017-2018 school year.
The resolution says the department will have a police chief who reports directly to Superintendent Sam Watkins.
All the officers in the department will be required to complete the basic training and educational requirements set by state law to serve as a law enforcement officer. The officers will have general police powers, including the power to arrest all persons within their view who commit any offense.
State code allows school corporations to form police departments, appoint officers, prescribe uniforms and provide emergency vehicles.
Indiana has 12 school corporations with in-house police departments, including school districts in Indianapolis, Lebanon, Brownsburg, Evansville and Monroe County.
Peru first established a student-resource-officer program in 2013, which employed one officer to monitor every building. Under a contract between the schools and the Peru Police Department, the guards were sworn in as special officers under the jurisdiction of the city’s police department.
Police Chief Mike Meeks said in a previous interview the move to create a school police department will free up the city’s police department from any liability for the officers.
Meeks told school board members Monday he fully supported a school police department, noting parents like knowing their kids are protected.
“As a parent, I know how much I like seeing an officer standing outside the building when I drop my child off,” he said. “It’s just a sense of security for us.”
Meeks said students feel the same way.
“I see how much these kids admire the officers and how much they like having them at their school,” he said.
But Board Member Gregory Quin said for some in the community, the cost of funding a school police department is too high considering budget constraints on the district.
Watkins said previously the district currently pays around $112,000 to employ four officers, with the city providing around $31,000 to hire the fifth officer. The city will continue to provide that stipend this year.
Quin said people he’s talked to say that money could be spent to hire teachers and other school staff.
“When you look and funding and the dollars and cents you put into this, it does take away from educating our kids,” he said. “The word ‘alarmist’ has been told to me. We are in a safe community. I’m not against our officers or this program, but this is a tough decision and budgets are important.”
But Meek said the reality of an attack or shooting at school is a reality the community must face. He pointed to one incident last November when a man near Elmwood Elementary School shot up his own house because he thought people were invading his land.
Meeks highlighted another incident earlier this year when a man threatened someone on the grounds at the elementary school while kids were outside playing. The man a few days later slammed into an ambulance and told the drivers they needed to repent because “the devil is here.”
“These are the kinds of people we need to protect our children from,” Meeks said. “He was on our school grounds, and could have done damage to our children … It’s real, and it can happen here. I’m really concerned about that.”
Watkins told board members the school district had the funding to pay for the police department, and most of the teachers, staff, students and parents supported the move.
“I think this is needed,” he said. “Our culture and climate is enhanced by this.”
The board voted 5-1 to approve the resolution, with Quin casting the only dissenting vote. Board Member Ron Mullett did not attend the meeting.
Meeks said although school officers can make arrests on school grounds, including streets passing through and adjacent to school property, the city police department will continue to make any arrests and conduct investigations into criminal activity at the schools.
“We don’t want school resource officers walking up and down the hallway with handcuffs and making arrests, and that simply isn’t going to happen,” he told the board. “We will still respond. We’ll still do the paperwork. We’ll still do the investigations. We want the SROs to do what they do great, and that’s to keep our kids secure.”
All employees in the department will be hourly, non-certified school employees. The resolution allows the chief issues uniform and standard equipment that clearly identifies officers as law enforcement and not security guards.
Watkins said the resolution creates the police department on a year-by-year basis, and board members can vote to dismantle it if they believe it doesn’t work or costs too much money.
He said in a previous interview once the department is up and running, the district will have more opportunities to apply for grant funding that could help offset the cost of operating the department.