TACOMA, Wash. - As some school districts across the country look at arming more educators, Tacoma recently took handguns away from some of its security staff.
The nine district employees, called the School Patrol Officers, had been carrying 9-millimeter Glocks for decades while patrolling school campuses and properties around the clock.
Superintendent Carla Santorno had the officers turn in their handguns in at the start of the 2017-18 school year.
“The superintendent decided that if any issue arises at any of our schools that would require someone to draw a gun, she wanted that to be a Tacoma Police Department highly trained officer,” said district spokesperson Dan Voelpel.
Voelpel said each of the district’s five traditional high schools has a Tacoma Police Officer assigned to patrol the campus.
The union representing the district’s School Patrol Officers has filed a grievance against the district. A hearing has been scheduled for next month.
“It’s insulting, because we’re all academy trained,” said one of the patrol officers, who feared he would lose his job if identified in this story.
He said all of the officers go through hundreds of hours of training before they’re issued weapons and are required to re-qualify several times a year on a shooting range.
The employee said he thinks disarming them, makes the schools less safe.
“If I’m at a school and there’s an active shooter and I’m armed, I’m trained enough to… stop that threat, to put myself in harm’s way,” he said, “Now I can’t do that.”
