Chris Frazier used to dislike the police.
Growing up, the French Middle School eighth-grader had been deeply influenced by accounts of police brutality and discrimination he had seen on TV.
But then he started talking with the Topeka Police Department school resource officer stationed at his school, and over time, he got to know the officer more deeply as a person, rather than some abstract figure and symbol of oppression.
Frazier began to see the police, but particularly those who work in schools, as a source of comfort, even if other students still held onto a skeptical, but not totally unreasonable, fear of police interactions.