We already have armed officers on campus, why do we need a whole police department? Personally I would feel as if I'm in a prison. I understand people are concerned for students safety, but I already feel safe.
ABQ Journal: APS Seeks Bill To Make Police Fully Certified
By Andrea Schoellkopf
Journal Staff Writer
Albuquerque Public Schools wants its police to become a full-fledged department. Officers are now considered a security force, commissioned by the Bernalillo County sheriff. A community task force in 2007 recommended APS police become a fully certified police agency, which requires legislative approval.
APS has already adopted many of the task force's recommendations, including arming certified police officers on the staff, upgrading equipment and police cars and giving an average 12 percent pay raise last summer.
"It really doesn't change the way we operate," APS police chief Bill Reed said Monday, after a board committee voted unanimously to seek legislative approval. "We've operated like a police department since 1970." The biggest problem, he said, is lack of access to the FBI's National Crime Information Center database and the state Gangnet database. "When you come across a person on school grounds, you have to make a 30-second judgment: Are they a criminal?" Reed said. "We really need NCIC in that respect."
Some who opposed the move last year said Reed helped change their minds. "We already have the guns," said board member Dolores Griego, who had been reluctant to support an independent department in the past. The bill APS is seeking would allow school districts that serve a population of more than 200,000 to have their own law enforcement agency, APS government liaison Joseph Escobedo said.
Monday, December 22, 2008
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Opportunity is the answer
The APS Police Department is a Praetorian Guard. It is a publicly funded, private police force that reports directly, and only, to the leadership of the APS. It is not certificated or accredited by anyone.
The 2003 Council of the Great City Schools audit revealed that the APS has a "culture" of the fear of retribution and retaliation, and the APS Police Department is in it up to its eyeballs.
The APS Police Department is supposedly still investigating the almost two year old scandal that saw the second APS Police Chief in a row, fired. They still have not turned over evidence of felony criminal misconduct to the DA, and statutes of limitation are about to expire, giving senior APS administrators a bye on prosecution for criminal misconduct.
The APS Police Department needs to be fully investigated before anything is done that makes them more powerful than they already are.
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