Ogden police on the defensive after video of school officer tussling with student
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- Ogden High School is shown on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021.
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- Students stream out of Ogden High School on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, after clearing of the building by law enforcement officials. The school was the target of a false report of an active shooter, which prompted a lockdown and heavy police presence at the school.
OGDEN — A confrontation this week between the school resource officer at Ogden High School and a student sparked a rebuke from the student and his mother as well as a flurry of media attention.
It also underscores debate that has simmered across the country over the presence of law enforcement officials in schools. They’re lauded by some as a means of assuring safety and criticized by others who say school policing seems to disproportionately impact students of color.
In the Ogden High School incident, the school’s student resource officer confronted a student after he was caught vaping inside the school, according to reports from KSL-TV and ABC4, Salt Lake City-based television stations.
The stations interviewed the student, who appears white, and his mother about the incident, which occurred Tuesday. They also showed a snippet of video from the incident, filmed by someone who happened to be on the scene, which shows the officer and student struggling against a set of lockers with the officer appearing to have the upper hand.
Ogden school officials and Ogden police have said little about the incident since it is under investigation and the student involved is a minor. A police statement, though, said the confrontation occurred as the resource officer was attempting to take the student into custody.
“At this time there are both internal reviews of the incident along with potential criminal charges for the student involved. This is an active and ongoing investigation and as such, there are no other details to be released at this time,” reads a police statement issued Wednesday. Officials had no additional comment on Thursday.
Ogden School District spokesman Jer Bates similarly offered little as the student involved is a minor. However, he said without elaboration that the student wasn’t at school on Thursday though the school resource officer was back on the job at Ogden High School.
The student’s mother decried what she viewed as excessive use of force by the officer against her son in her interview with KSL. “I think he abused his power. It breaks my heart to see this,” she said.
Bates wouldn’t speak specifically about Tuesday’s incident, but he said the school resource officer is “very well established” at Ogden High School. He’s been with the Ogden Police Department for 22 years and served for 11 years at the high school.
Generally speaking, Bates said the officer has had “a positive rapport and supportive demeanor with staff and students.” After the false report of a shooter at Ogden High School on March 29, the officer and others who subsequently searched the school before the report was deemed a hoax were lauded for their quick response.
Bates also defended the presence of school resource officers in Ogden schools. An Ogden officer is assigned to each of the three high schools and three junior high schools in the district.
“They help reinforce a positive culture of schools being a safe place to be,” he said. The aim by having on officer on school grounds is “to say, ‘Hey, look — this is a safe place to be.'”
In fact, issues have only seemed to bubble to the surface, he said, when students have acted out. “I would say complaints or concerns I’ve heard of usually are related to students who have had some behavior challenges when our SROs have been obliged to assist,” Bates said.
Bates’ view notwithstanding, the use of resource officers to police schools has sparked debate in legal and education circles.
The National Association of School Resource Officers, which provides training to school-based law enforcement officials, cited a report by Carleton University in Canada saying school resource officers help boost a sense of safety in schools.
According to that report, their presence helps reduce instances of property damage in schools, lowers the likelihood students will get criminal records and boosts the likelihood students needing help from social services agencies and health care systems will get it.
Student resource officers “have the ability to make arrests, respond to calls for service and document incidents that occur within their jurisdiction,” reads the website of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS. “Beyond law enforcement, SROs also serve as educators, emergency managers and mentors.”
The COPS office provides funding and assistance with deployment of school resource officers.
A 2021 report by Education Week, a publication focused on the education sector, said recent studies offer mixed findings.
“The emerging picture suggests that while school police do mitigate some types of violence in schools, their presence also increases certain kinds of disciplinary outcomes, including suspensions and expulsions, as well as arrests,” reads the report. At the same time, it said, some studies have concluded that the presence of police in schools seems “to lead to declines in violent incidents in schools, such as rape, robbery and physical attacks.”
The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on investigating “inequality,” reported in 2021 that certain classes of students seem to be impacted the most by school policing.
The organization’s analysis of U.S. Department of Education data “found that school policing disproportionately affects students with disabilities, Black children and, in some states, Native American and Latino children,” the report reads. “Nationwide, Black students. … and students with disabilities were referred to law enforcement at nearly twice their share of the overall student population.”