Los Angeles schools soon to decide if they want cops back on campus after defund the police efforts saw them removed from class hallways

Individual Los Angeles public school campuses should be allowed to decide whether to station a police officer on campus, a safety task force has ruled.

The recommendation comes years after the LA Unified School District did away with cops on campus - a direct result of anti-police student activism brought on by movements such as Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police.

Now, amid steeply escalating crime, drug use and violence, some of these students' parents are reconsidering.

Citing district data that shows a sharp rise in what the school system refers to as 'reported incidents', parents produced 'Bring Back School Police' signs at a regional campus safety meeting May 2.

Meanwhile, a taskforce quietly established by the board of education came to the conclusion schools should be left to their own devices.

Individual Los Angeles public school campuses should be allowed to decide whether to station a police officer on campus, a safety task force has ruled. Pictured: A parent holding a 'Bring Back School Police' sign during a regional campus safety meeting May 2

Citing district data that shows a sharp rise in what the school system refers to as 'reported incidents', parents at the meeting echoed the task force's assertion, after it was created in 2020 to replace the mandatory police 

Meanwhile, LAUSD staff members listened as parents aired concerns alongside the task force this past Thursday at Patrick Henry Middle School that focused on school safety. 

In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing and protests, the city passed by narrow margin the removal of police from hallways. The vote also saw the Los Angeles School Police Department budget slashed by 35 percent. 

In the four years since, cops by and large have been kept off campus, leaving the more than 600,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade mostly to their own devices.

This has proved to be a recipe for more fights on campus and difficulty controlling vaping and the use of serious drugs such as fentanyl, which killed a student at one of the district's more than 1,000 schools in 2022. 

In the newly released data, incidents of fighting more than doubled since the 2017-18 schoolyear, from 2,270 reported incidents to just under 4,800 so far this year. 

Within that span, use of illegal or controlled substances also almost doubled, from 854 incidents to just over 1,500.

The recommendation comes years after the LA Unified School District did away with cops on campus - a direct result of anti-police student activism brought on by movements like Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police

In the four years since, cops by and large have been kept off campus, leaving the more than 600,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade mostly to their own devices. Pictured, anti-police protesters parading through the streets of LA on June 23, 2020

The anti-police processions were spurred by movements like such as Black Lives Matter and the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis

LAUSD students, parents, educators and community members alike participated in the campaign, which has contributed to the alarming increases

If heeded, the recommendation would reverse a decision arrived at after months of heated protests by members of the student body, parents, and LA citizens

Within weeks, the decision to remove mandatory police officers from the district's high schools and other campuses was made final

Instances of weapons being confiscated also spiked drastically, by more than 200 incidents.

Reported incidents deemed a threat to school staffers and the student body, meanwhile, rose by more than 1,300, going from 1,994 during the 2017-18 school year to 3,302 in 2023.   

Categories of 'suicide risk' also showed rises even when on-campus cops were still a policy - supporting some parents' assertions that not all was well and good even when officers were still stationed across the district's schools.

If heeded, the recommendation would reverse a decision arrived at after months of heated protests by members of the student body, parents, and LA citizens alike.

Within weeks, the decision to remove mandatory police officers from the district's high schools and other campuses was made final.

The move almost immediately affected the Los Angeles School police's more than 400 officers, with 65 officers laid off during that first year, after which three dozen additional vacant positions were also left unfilled. 

The move almost immediately affected the Los Angeles School police's more than 400 officers, with 65 officers laid off during that first year, after which three dozen additional vacant positions were also left unfilled 

In the years since, some of the budget has been reinstated - angering some activists who see it as a reneging on the district's promise in 2020.

However, as some pointed out at the emergency meeting in Granada Hills and Thursday, cause and effect for some of these rises is difficult to immediately blame on a lack of policing.

Simultaneous phenomena such as the rise of student mental health issues in the wake of the pandemic must also be kept in mind, as well as the largely anecdotal reports of increased campus fighting.

Still, the data shows the lack of police has played at least some part in the rise in incidents, due to the stark changes seen in the years since the policy was implemented.

Several headline-grabbing incidents involving LA Unified District students have occurred since, including a brutal fight at Crenshaw High School where a student was filmed being kicked in the head multiple times.

Several headline-grabbing incidents involving LA Unified District students have occurred since, including a brutal fight at Crenshaw High School where a student was filmed being kicked in the head multiple times

A few months before, in December, Redondo Union High School found itself on 'lockdown' following a report of a student with a gun. The report saw a large response from Redondo Beach's police department, and resulted in another teen being lead away in cuffs

Any changes to the district's policing policy would go into effect during the upcoming school year. In the meantime, schools remain relatively unprotected, with district officers forced to patrol areas around schools and respond to emergency calls off and on campus

A few months before, in December, Redondo Union High School found itself on 'lockdown' following a report of a student with a gun. 

The report saw a large response from Redondo Beach's police department, and resulted in another teen being lead away in handcuffs.

The incident itself came a day after a different student was arrested for bringing a loaded, high-capacity handgun onto campus - an offense that contributed to the statistics above.

Any changes to the school district's policing policy would go into effect during the upcoming school year. 

In the meantime, schools remain relatively unprotected, with district officers forced to patrol areas around schools and respond to emergency calls off and on campus.