Petition seeks to remove resource officers from schools

A diverse group of high school students and recent grads is asking Mankato Area Public Schools leaders to remove police resource officers from schools.

They worry resource officers disproportionately criminalize Black and brown students and create an environment where many students do not feel safe. They want the funding for resource officers reallocated to other student support services.

But Mankato police and school leaders say their resource officer program is unique in its focus on positive relationship-building. They say the officers spend most of their time educating and mentoring and they don’t make more arrests or issue more citations than they would if they were called to the school when incidents arise.

Mankato Area Public Schools is among many districts that have police officers stationed within some schools. The district and the city of Mankato share the cost. The number of officers has fluctuated between one and four over the years depending on budget constraints, according to Free Press archives.

Currently there are three officers — one stationed at each high school and one at Prairie Winds Middle School.

The district and the city of North Mankato do not have a partnership to have an officer at Dakota Meadows Middle School.

Patrol officers in both cities pay visits to the schools that do not have a resource officer. The resource officers, sometimes referred to as SROs, also at times will go to other schools.

A number of school districts across the country have severed their partnerships with police departments in recent months, following scrutiny in the wake of the death of George Floyd. In Minnesota the districts include Minneapolis, St. Paul and Winona.

An online petition asking Mankato Area Public Schools to follow suit has received over 1,300 signatures.

“Beyond the criminalization of Black and brown youth, SROs do not contribute to the well being and safety of the student body,” the petition states.

A group of teens and young adults with Mankato area roots started the petition and submitted the signatures to date along with a letter to Mankato school administrators and School Board members.

“This unbalanced and unfair policing system approved by the School Board has resulted in Black and brown students being targeted, surveilled, and suspended,” the letter states. “The presence of police in three of our schools brings a level of indescribable dehumanization.”

The School District paid $193,000 for the resource officers last school year. Ignite the Youth members say those dollars should instead be used on more counselors, social workers, drug and suicide prevention programs or other student support staff and initiatives.

“They’re funding police officers but not life-affirming institutions that we know our children need,” said Anisa Omar, an East graduate and former president of the Minnesota State University student government.

The letter asks school officials to acknowledge and begin discussing the Ignite the Youth’s request at Tuesday’s School Board meeting.

Supt. Paul Peterson responded that school resource officers will be a part of an equity study the district is undertaking over the course of the coming school year.

Mankato Director of Public Safety Amy Vokal said her department is listening to the calls for police reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s death. But she believes Mankato’s school resource officer program should not be compared to Minneapolis or St. Paul.

“We are proud of what we do locally and we do feel it is different,” she said.

East High School Principal Jeff Dahline echoed that from the school district’s perspective.

“We want to make sure that that first opportunity for engagement for our students with law enforcement is a positive one and in an area where they feel safe and supported,” he said.

Mankato officials say resource officers aren’t at the schools looking to arrest or cite students for minor offenses.

“A big role of a school resource officer is just to be present and to be a role model and build positive relationships with students and staff,” Department of Public Safety Cmdr. Justin Neumann said.

The resource officers spend part of their time doing classroom presentations or educating students one-on-one about safety topics ranging from drug use to sexting. A primary topic these days is safe social media use.

“Our resource officers are so incredibly helpful working with our students and our staff and educating on the harmful effects of social media,” said Scott Hare, director of support services for Mankato Area Public Schools.

Much of the officers’ time is spent simply connecting with students. In the hallways and the cafeteria, resource officer Keith Mortensen said he’s available for students to ask him questions, or he is asking them about how they are doing.

“Constant contact” is the key to gaining trust, he said. “Talking to them every day. Sitting down with them at lunch. Finding out what’s going on in their lives.”

The resource officers are sometimes the first people in a school to recognize when a student is in need of support dealing with a personal issue, Vokal said. The officer then will engage the principal, social worker and other school staff to get the student support, Mortensen added.

“We work together as a team,” Mortensen said.

Most summers the resource officers host Cops and Bobbers — a weekly opportunity for at-risk youths to come fish with them. For the younger participants it’s an opportunity to meet their future resource officers in a positive environment. For the older participants it’s a way to stay connected over the summer.

Vokal pointed to a traffic backup last spring as evidence the resource officers are indeed building positive relationships.

It was one of the days East High School seniors came back for their graduation walks. Mortensen was supposed to be directing traffic as families arrived. But Mortensen could not keep traffic flowing smoothly because so many families wanted to stop and talk to him, Vokal said.

Leaders of the Ignite the Youth group who spoke to The Free Press said for many students — especially Black and brown students — positive relationships cannot be built in schools until there is systemic change within law enforcement.

They have not personally been mistreated by a school resource officer, they said. But the negative interactions with police they and their peers have had, that they have witnessed and that they have heard on the news has made them fearful of all members of law enforcement.

“Police terrify me,” said Ruwayda Omar, an East High School graduate. “I just don’t trust police. We’ve seen what they’re doing to Black people.”

The young activists also say they’ve done research and believe national and local data suggests resource officers disproportionately target minority students and do not make schools safer.

They learned for, example, that of the 41 Mankato students who were referred to law enforcement for an at-school incident last school year, 13 were black, five were Hispanic and seven were multiracial.

“SROs aren’t there to protect us. They are criminalizing Black and brown students from a young age and putting them into the criminal justice system before they even are adults,” said Desmond Bassett, an East High School graduate.

Hare said the number of referrals is quite low for a district with nearly 9,000 students. Most of those referrals were for drug or alcohol possession — which school officials are mandated to report, Hare said.

And those referrals — which do not always result in an arrest or citation — will happen regardless of whether there is an officer already on site, he said.

The resource officers step into a law enforcement role only in very limited situations, city and district officials say.

“The main one is when someone is in crisis or there is a situation where you have to step in to protect someone from harm,” Mortensen said. “The role that I do is not to go in with a heavy hand. That is a last resort. It is hands off as much as possible. It’s all about relationships.”

When there is a student in crisis, school and law enforcement officials say having an officer with whom the student has a preexisting relationship can help de-escalate the situation.

“We would still be called to the schools and it would just be any officer off of the street,” Vokal said. “When we have officers who have developed relationships and know special needs — that’s what we’re aiming for. We’re not putting officers in schools to find crime or to handle discipline. We’re putting them in there to develop relationships.”