listen to. and joining me now, montgomery county council member, attorney, and former-obama white house aide, will jawando. and kyson taylor, thank you both for being in with us this morning. and councilman, i would like to start with you. that video we just saw showing officers berating a 5-year-old child who ran away from school after breaking a computer last year. we saw in video earlier that the sro, also, handcuffed the child. now, you pushed for the release of that video. you demanded a full investigation. any updates on the status of those officers? well, unfortunately, it took us over a year to find out. and the only reason we found out is because there was a lawsuit filed by the family. those officers are still working. we there was some discipline that was doled out, we are told, by the chief. we don t know what because of a state law that shields records. it s one of the many things wrong with our justice system. thankfully, the maryland state legislature took action, ea
resources in. psychologists, counselors, mental-health professionals, social workers. and not have police. we will not have police in schools next year. that s a great step forward but we have to come around with those wraparound supports. similarly, on outside of school. we don t need police responding to people who are dealing with mental health or homelessness. and we are also taking steps to do that to set up new options for our residents so that they can be safe. because really, we have a lot of disproportionality, both, in and outside of school. yeah. trying to spread out these resources as much as possible. and kyson, what is your take on that as well? you are a member of the task force. what recommendations do you have for how a school resource officer might enter campus moving forward? i think we really firmly believe that law enforcement should not have an enforcement presence on our school campuses. so, keeping that in mind, i think, it s really important that we work to
this year. and in october, we ll be able to know what the discipline was. in my view, it s insufficient. they re still working. they could still respond to a school today. it s one of the many things we failed to do as a society. there are much better, highly-trained individuals that should be helping and loving and working with our students outside of police officers. every time i see that video, i m a little i get choked up. it s just horrible. i have a son, myself, who is 2 1/2. i have three daughters, 7, 8, and 10. i cannot imagine them being treated like that. it s it s why we need to remove police from schools and why i m so proud of kyson. and that was just one incident. there is also another one in new mexico here we are about to show you. a middle schooler was pushed and then held down by officers on her campus. we do want to warn you, this video you are about to see is disturbing. put your arms behind your back. put your arms behind your back! ow. you re hurting my
therapeutic services to our students in schools. that are accessible. that they may come to in the moment of crisis or a moment of need. and i think, the third and final one is school climate and curriculums. looking at how we teach our students and what we teach them so we can make the school environment really welcoming and safe for all students, especially students of color. and councilman, in your state, black students make up 34% of the student population. but 56% of student arrests. how is the task force taking part in trying to tackle this inequity? it s actually worse in montgomery county. black students are 20% of our student population and 50% of the arrests. and that mere disproportionality of our juveniles outside of schools who are arrested. so this sro issue is really a microcosm of the larger effort to reimagine public safety. we need our officers focused on violent crime, not on policing students and producing disproportionality in our schools. and so, that s why th
When Kyson Taylor, a junior at Rockville’s Richard Montgomery High School, winds the same path to his psychology class every day, he can feel the eyes following his movements. Despite having few direct interactions with his school resource officer the police officer assigned to monitor Richard Montgomery the man watched him intensely every […]