A
violent incident in East Tennessee is drawing attention to the aggressive tendencies of SROs, or student resource officers. Body cam footage shows a school officer grabbing a Black child by the neck, pulling him down bleachers by his hair, and violently throwing him to the ground. Then, the officer pepper-sprays the student.
The kid's offense?
He chose to sit out in gym class because he felt ill.
Sign now to demand that Superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson immediately remove all student resource officers from the 79 schools in Hamilton County School District schools. We must not allow adults to continue to abuse and assault students!
Students at the high school were alarmed by the footage, and actually staged a walkout in protest of the treatment of the student by this officer.
But that didn't have any impact on the case itself:
the student who was assaulted is now facing criminal charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and assault. Meanwhile, it is unclear if the officer is being held accountable in any capacity at all.
Even worse, this isn't isolated to Tennessee. School resources officers are one of the fastest growing roles of law enforcement, especially in response to mass shootings happening across the country. But there isn't any evidence that SROs prevent mass shootings. In fact,
more and more footage depicts SROs initiating and instigating violence against children instead.Sign the petition now to tell Superintendent Dr. Justin Robertson to get rid of the SROs in his schools and find effective ways to keep kids safe from all forms of harm!