Gun violence in and round colleges has emerged as one of the vital urgent points in Denver’s crowded mayor’s race.
On Wednesday, a 17-year-old scholar was suspected of capturing two directors on the metropolis’s East Excessive College, critically wounding one. The capturing comes simply weeks after East Excessive scholar Luis Garcia, 16, died from accidents he sustained after being shot in his automobile close to the college’s campus on Feb. 13.
Within the wake of the second capturing, Denver mayoral candidates took to social media to reply to the violence that has left college students at East fearful to be on campus.
Lisa Calderón’s background consists of work as a university professor and an extended historical past of legal justice reform advocacy. On Wednesday, she known as for stricter gun management and extra psychological well being sources on college campuses as a response to the violence. East college students marched from the college to the Colorado Capitol earlier this month to induce state lawmakers to move gun management laws.
“I hear and agree with the pleas of scholars: Phrases will not be sufficient. It’s time for motion. We’d like stronger restrictions on firearms. We additionally want extra psychological well being counselors and de-escalation consultants in our colleges to assist younger individuals to stop violence earlier than it occurs,” Calderón wrote as part of a Twitter thread addressing Wednesday’s capturing.
Violence is an outgrowth of the failures of assist programs for younger individuals, Calderón mentioned. She vowed to work with lawmakers and Denver Public Faculties to lower entry to weapons and make it simpler for college kids to get psychological well being assist.
Absent from Calderón’s Twitter thread was a point out of bringing armed Denver law enforcement officials again into colleges. In 2020, the elected Denver college board voted to take away Denver Police Division useful resource officers from colleges within the aftermath of the homicide of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Board members on the time mentioned having police in colleges was dangerous to college students of coloration and contributed to the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
Time period-limited Mayor Michael Hancock went to the East Excessive campus on Wednesday to make a public plea for assist finding the capturing suspect who was nonetheless at massive. In an announcement, the mayor known as for extra gun management but in addition a return of faculty useful resource officers to DPS buildings.
Different candidates within the race for mayor took this place.
Trinidad Rodriguez retweeted the mayor’s statement and added “We will study from previous errors in colleges and do that equitably and, as is more and more clear, save lives.”
Mike Johnston, a former trainer and highschool principal, additionally known as on the college board to reverse its coverage and permit particular person colleges to resolve if they need armed law enforcement officials of their buildings.
“As a former principal, at the moment’s capturing at East Excessive College is especially heartbreaking as a result of two educators needed to search a scholar they suspected of getting a weapon — and so they each bought shot with that weapon — as a result of they didn’t have a steel detector or an officer to do this search,” he tweeted.
One among Andy Rougeot’s chief marketing campaign guarantees has been hiring 400 further law enforcement officials as a response to Denver’s rising crime charges lately.
The mayor doesn’t have the ability to set insurance policies for DPS, however Rougeot tweeted on Wednesday that if the college board didn’t convey again college useful resource officers he would “publish a police officer exterior each highschool campus ready as near the college as legally allowed as mayor.”
Rougeot and Calderón argued at a debate final week over whether or not or no more law enforcement officials made a neighborhood safer. Calderón labored on the Denver Process Pressure for Reimagining Policing and Public Security. One among that group’s suggestions was to attenuate pointless interactions between legislation enforcement and residents.
Debbie Ortega is a sitting Metropolis Council member along with operating for mayor. In an announcement Wednesday she was praying for the victims of the capturing however added that prayers will not be sufficient.
“I known as the Mayor and have made a request to convene Metropolis management, DPS and faculty management to deal with this subject, instantly,” Ortega tweeted.
Candidate Robert Treta shared a photograph of himself standing on the statehouse steps with racial justice protestors in June 2020 in response to the capturing. He vowed to be the kind of mayor that may stand with the neighborhood in instances of disaster.
“One other college capturing at East Highschool. I can’t imagine it. We have to determine this out and we have to do that now,” Treta mentioned in a separate tweet.
State Sen. Chris Hansen tweeted Wednesday that his coronary heart was breaking once more for the East Excessive neighborhood.
“Our kids and households are hurting and that is one other horrible reminder of the work we nonetheless need to do,” his post read.
Kelly Brough and Leslie Herod each put out statements in regards to the capturing.
Brough mentioned each choice ought to be on the desk to guard college students and school in metropolis colleges together with bringing again the college useful resource officer program which she emphasised might have made a distinction on Wednesday.
“What we’re doing isn’t working, and our households deserve higher,” Brough mentioned. “On the naked minimal, these colleges and communities who need SROs ought to have them instantly.”
Herod, who was the first sponsor of the state landmark police accountability invoice in 2020, didn’t tackle college useful resource officers explicitly in her assertion however mentioned that any occasion during which educators are being tasked with looking out college students for weapons is a coverage failure. Denver colleges are “under-resourced to fulfill the varied and rising wants” of scholars, she mentioned.
“Curbing youth violence is prime to the protection and wellness of our metropolis. Our metropolis’s leaders ought to be bringing our state’s prime consultants collectively to deal with the foundation causes of this disaster and to guarantee that we by no means once more put our educators on the entrance line to maintain our colleges secure,” her assertion learn.