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VOL. 122, ISSUE NO. 29
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‘NOBODY WANTS A COP IN THE ROOM’
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EPD officers will no longer be located in Eugene high schools
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ON THE COVER
Ducks defensive tackle Kayvon Thibodeaux (5) runs out onto the field at the start of the game. Oregon Ducks football takes on the UCLA Bruins at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore., on Nov. 21, 2020. (DL Young/Emerald)
BY JOANNA MANN Eugene School District 4J high schools will no longer be staffed by school resource officers following the school board’s decision to only renew their contract with the Eugene Police Department until Dec. 31, 2020. (Summer Surgent-Gough/Emerald)
School resource officers will no longer be located in Eugene School District 4J high schools, following the school board’s decision in June to only renew the contract with the Eugene Police Department until Dec. 31, 2020. The decision came after the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake this summer, which reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and a push to defund the police. Mary Walston, 2021 chair of the Eugene School Board, said the fact that the board had the opportunity to renew the contract at such a critical time made for “the perfect storm.” “For me personally, we need to do something differently because I know what we’re doing isn’t working for everybody,” Walston said. “I don’t know what the answers are, but we’re trying to change 400 years of institutional racism in this country. I personally feel a moral obligation and responsibility to do what I can do.” Walston said she believes the problem is not with EPD, but the fact that they are painted with the same brush as the Minneapolis Police Department. She said the decision to remove SROs was difficult because some of them felt personally maligned by the conversation. A former SRO for the district did not respond to a request for comment. Had students been on campus this year, SROs would have been present from the start of school until Dec. 18, the last day before winter break. SROs are sworn officers assigned to a school to provide law enforcement and law-related counseling. Walston said SROs handle oncampus crimes, angry parent interactions and suicide calls. But to some students, the presence of a police officer only makes things worse. Jeffrey Squires, a senior and the student vice president at Churchill High School, said the consensus among his peers was that the SRO assigned to his school never needed to be there, and made many students uncomfortable. “We’d have a kid who’d just be skipping third period, and then all of a sudden here comes [the
SRO] walking in with the kid on his arm and it looks like the kid’s being arrested or something. He so didn’t need to be there for that,” Squires said. “You can tell that the students got on edge when he came in. There’s a cop in the room; nobody wants a cop in the room.” When it comes to dissipating hostile parent interactions or helping students with their mental health, Squires said he has seen campus and student counselors handle those situations just as well as a police officer, if not better. “On the topic of sexual assault and abuse, police officers have no idea how to navigate that. Every time it has happened at our school and it has been brought to a police officer, it has always been mishandled and it has ended up in a horribly traumatizing manner for a student,” Squires said. “Students just feel like there’s no one they can go to if a police officer is the only person they can go to.” The school district’s contract with EPD is over $400,000, and many protesters thought that money should go toward funding teachers and counselors. Walston said the board plans to use next year’s budget to “beef up” wraparound services such as emotional and mental health counseling for students. The district will release the new budget in April 2021. “But the caveat to that is with the pandemic and with the downturn in the economy, we have gotten less money than we thought we were going to get,” Walston said. “We initially thought we’d get $13 million with the Student Success Act and that has been scaled back 4.3.” The school board is still figuring out how to provide necessary safety services without the presence of SROs, and Walston said the planning is taking longer than she would have liked. It’s a huge task, she said, but she is hopeful that the board can incrementally make some changes at the district level. “This work is never done. It’s like a garden — you plant it, you weed it, you keep tending it,” Walston said. “I don’t think this work will ever be done in my lifetime. But that’s not a reason not to try and keep moving forward.”
OREGON LEGISLATORS PREPARE FOR PROTESTS: Oregon legislators will delay gathering in person for the 2021 legislative session, with the FBI warning lawmakers nationwide to prepare for large, armed protests. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown dispatched the Oregon National Guard on Jan. 13 to protect the capitol in the run-up to the presidential inauguration. Armed demonstrators have gathered repeatedly outside the Oregon capitol building in Salem, protesting the state’s 2020 election results. – DUNCAN BAUMGARTEN OREGON MEN’S BASKETBALL GAME MOVED TO LA: After a previous meeting set for Dec. 23 was rescheduled, the Oregon-UCLA game scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 19, at Matthew Knight Arena has now been rescheduled for Feb. 1 in Los Angeles. The game starts at 2 p.m. and will be broadcast by ESPN2. Dana Altman’s program now has a three-game road trip in the city, playing the Bruins on Jan. 28, USC on Jan. 30 and UCLA again two days later. – SHANE HOFFMANN
(Maddie Knight/Emerald)
VIRTUAL FILM FESTIVAL: The 31st Annual Cascade Festival of African Films will take place from Feb. 5 to March 10, hosted virtually by Portland Community College. The festival seeks to represent Africa through the eyes of African filmmakers and will feature 18 feature-length and four short films, several of which will be followed by Q&As. The festival is free and open to the public. More information can be found at africanfilmfestival.org. – JENNAH PENDLETON
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