The problem with school Resource Officers is they stop being Police Officers the moment they step on campus. However they incur all the responsibility and obligations of a police officer, while they are there.  The breakdown that makes this possible is called “Home Rule”.  This makes the Principal of the school the cock of the walk. What they say goes.  When I was going to school fifty years ago, my peers and I considered the Principal to be an idiot and non-entity, we thought that was a job requirement. The Assistant Principal, on the other hand….

Anyways here we go, out of Albuquerque, a court-rules-for-middle-school-officer.  It seems a thirteen year old was disrupting class by burping repeatedly and refused to stop. Even worse he was in PE class. Can you string coach, mud hole, thirteen year old ass into a sentence?  Apparently not anymore.  

The school resource officer is called and escorts the little charmer to the school administrative offices.  The rocket scientists in administration came up with “Interfering with the Education Process” a penal code, read, criminal offense and instructed the Resource officer to book him.

I suspect there is more to the story, the kid is probably a candidate to be the Poster Child for Retroactive Abortion. There is no mention of a dad in the home and from the wife’s antics nobody blames him that he left.

The problem is a clash of two cultures, criminal justice and education.  I suppose the school resource officer got his assignment because that is what he wanted to do.  Just as likely, in my opinion, he got the assignment because patrol was beyond his abilities.  There are two distinct circumstances happening in a school environment, there is criminal behavior, justly the purview of the cop and there is school discipline, the bailiwick of the school administration. Sometimes they cross lines, often they do not.

I don’t have a problem with the school resource officer escorting this kid to the office. Part of his job is to ensure the peace.  But once the brain trust started in, flailing away until they arrived at “Interrupting the Education Process”. It was time for the partnership to end.

It was time for the officer to take control. “Great, who is going to write the report?”  I cannot address all the elements of the offense.  That means I don’t have probable cause and reason to believe that such an offense took place.  That means I cannot make an arrest.” End of discussion.

Yeah, I know the appellate court upheld the arrest, but notice there is no mention of a conviction.  The appeal came up because of mama’s lawsuit, not an appeal of a criminal conviction.  What the appellate court is saying is yeah, okay, you had enough to arrest him without commenting on the State’s ability to convict him.

I have visions of an Assistant District Attorney running, screaming, outpacing the pursuing school resource officer, who is waving his cheesey arrest report. This is a game a Principal learns early, make the school resource officer book the little darling and then we can say it’s all the cops idea.  Done believe me check out the arrest statistics between a school with a school resource officer stationed on campus and a school without a resident school resource officer.  The old saw is true, “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

Maybe adult supervision in schools would help?