Wayne County Sheriff, Barry Virts addresses concerns, answers questions
It has happened once again. A lone teen, heavily armed, enters a school building and starts a killing spree. Sometimes a single person is the victim, but more likely, mass murders and injuries have mounted until the gunman is captured, or killed.
Wayne County’s elite Rapid Reponse Team has practiced such a scenario for years, but are the police, school districts, and community ready to handle such an event?
Most schools in Wayne County now require entrants to be viewed/questioned by video/vocal surveillance before entry, after classes have begun. Visitors need passes and purpose to enter buildings.
Some school districts have armed SROs (School Resource Officers) on campus, but funds are often stretched. Districts have adopted policies, trained teachers and staff have practiced drills to respond for such a threat.
No amount of training could fully prepare a staff or responding agency to the threat of a disturbed shooter.
Wayne County Sheriff Barry Virts discussed the issues with the Times on Friday.
Should SROs be positioned in every district?
“The most important point is this is not just about having an “armed guard or armed teacher” in our schools. We should not look to make fortresses out of our schools.”
What about the idea floated about arming teachers?
“Arming teachers or hiring armed security officers is up to each individual school district. However, I think law enforcement is better positioned to be armed in our schools providing both security and a School Resource Officer Program partnering with school officials and students.”
How do SROs or teachers spot a troubled student?
“Schools know troubled students very early on in elementary school with inappropriate behavior that many times increases in middle and high school.
Early intervention with a School Resource Officer in every school district in the state can address these concerns and help with prevention efforts.”
“With the Raise the Age legislation decriminalizing those ages 16 and 17, School Resource Officers and school officials together could prevent and deter many incidents, in school and after school, from ever occurring in the first place.”
Who will pay for school shooting prevention?
“Most of the time prevention efforts are not funded, because it is difficult to quantify what was stopped, avoided and/or deterred.
Providing funding for a SRO Program in every school by a law enforcement agency would be invaluable for cultural change and security.
Kids have formed bonds with SROs and many opened up enough to tell the SRO about abuse at home, kids that were bullying and many other things going on that otherwise would have went on without anyone knowing.
I have advocated for a countywide School Resource Officer Program in Wayne County since 2010 stating; Every day our school districts host roughly 15,000 students and staff members in the twelve school districts around the county. It is my vision to provide a School Resource Officer to every school district in the county by this Office and/or with the assistance of other law enforcement agencies to provide safety and security to our most vulnerable population and sites.”
What would be the cost for providing an SRO in a district?
“The cost to provide the SRO Service full time, including salary, benefits, equipment and vehicle is $45.00 per hour.
(This will increase somewhat when negotiations are finalized with the deputies as that Collective Bargaining Agreement expired at the end of 2015.)
County leaders and school officials all support the idea, but few want to fund a countywide SRO Program. This is a complex issue that schools, law enforcement and local governments need to address in partnership.”
What about failures to address school shooting incidents?
“It is embarrassing to see the failures of law enforcement in the Parkland School killing.
Old training was to never enter an active threat incident alone, but wait for backup to assemble a team or 3 or 4 officers. This thought process and training method was changed around 2014/2015. Since then my Office changed our training methods of all Wayne County law enforcement (deputies, troopers, police departments, probation officers) for the first officer on the scene to enter, engage and terminate the active threat.”
Sheriff Virts is also the President of the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, and sheriffs around the state have called for state funding of armed officers in all schools.
The New York State Sheriffs’ Association asked the State Legislature to include in the 2018 State Budget sufficient funding to provide at least one armed school resource officer at every grade school and high school in the state.
“This will be an expensive undertaking,” said Sheriff Virts, “but we owe it to our children, and their parents, to provide a safe place for education to take place.”
“We spend many millions of dollars to protect a relatively small number of judges across the state, as we should. Surely we can also find the money to protect our most defenseless people – the children we send off to school each day,” Sheriff Virts said.
There are about 4,750 public schools and nearly 2,000 private schools educating students in grades K through 12 in the state. The Sheriffs’ Association estimates that the cost of this proposal would be roughly equivalent to that of adding one teacher to each of these schools.
The number of SROs has dropped in recent years due to the lack of local funding. Some schools already have SROs that are funded by the school district, the county government, or both. “The only way to assure that every student has the protection of an armed officer in close proximity is for the state to provide a reliable funding stream for SROs. Many school districts and local governments are unable to do it due to tax caps and limited funding sources,” Sheriff Virts added.
Currently North Rose-Wolcott has a full time SRO. Wayne and Sodus both have part time SROs two days a week, while Macedon Police department is at Gananda part time.
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