On Tuesday, May 13th, Greenwich High School student Victor Hugo Londono was tasered by School Resource Officer Carlos Franco when Londono resisted arrest.

The fallout from this incident has tempers flaring amongst students, teachers, parents, and law enforcement throughout the community, as reflected in the comments on the Stamford Advocate’s coverage of the story.

Of course, this incident can not be thoroughly evaluated without the reader first considering my personal opinion My opinion is important because a) I have no background in law enforcement or student at GHS and b) because I wasn’t there. Now that I have fully qualified myself…

1. Greenwich High School created a disciplinary atmosphere where the officer had to arrest the subject to save face and not damage his respect from other student witnesses, even if de-escalating the situation or even allowing the student to leave campus and cool off was probably the long-term better outcome.

If students have precedent that they can just walk away when an SRO gives them direction, then that SRO cant do his job effectively moving forward.

Sans a School Resource Officer, the incident would have had to been handled by a faculty member, who would have neither had the desire nor authority to subdue and arrest the subject. They would have had to talk them down, or let him leave campus. THIS IS THE TRADITIONAL AND DESIRABLE OUTCOME.

2. When a subject fails to obey a police officer, at a certain point the officer can no longer be passive about the failure to comply. I agree, when Londono started kicking chairs and swearing at the SRO, as a police officer he could not allow that to continue and needed to proceed with handcuffing him.

Londono resisted arrest, and now we are in a situation where we have a suspect resisting arrest of a police officer, and the fact that he is a high school student and they are in a school is no longer relevant to anything.

All that is relevant at this point is that there is a police officer who must subdue a physically aggressive, physically fit 18-year-old man in a manner which is safest to himself, the subject, and bystanders. Period.

If the SRO made the decision in that case that the use of the low-power option on his taser resulted in the safest outcome for all involved, then so be it. The fact that he had to use it three times before Londono succumbed makes it clear that its use was not excessive - if it were, Londono would have submitted to the officer on the first application.

So, the problem here is why do we have cops in schools? - because when a cop is in a school, certain procedures have to be followed that escalate a situation beyond reason.

When faculty is responsible for discipline, there is far more resolution latitude and possibility for de-escalation, and personally I think even kids who act up have some respect for the fact that getting physical with a teacher is not an option.

Whats more, you don’t want presence of a police officer *increasing* the possibility of students getting arrested and having a police record before graduating. The goal of a school is to *prevent* kids from getting arrested. This often involves dealing internally with stuff like drugs and other misbehavior that police officers are legally obligated to handle much differently.

So, why do we have cops in schools?
Thats easy - liability.

With the increase in school violence, if a shooting happens at a school, the fact that the school had a full time police officer, whether he was effective in handling the incident or not, goes a long way in getting the school off the hook for basic prevention. And in terms of *preventing* a school shooting, keep in mind that Columbine High School had an SRO Sheriff on site and on duty at the time of the attack.

However, discipline in a school on a day to day basis has absolutely nothing to do with school shootings. School shootings, while *alarmingly* common to us, are the statistical equivalent of a double lightning strike on the head, while incidents like Londono’s are common.

Finally, there is the question I don’t know the answer to at all, and that is - do the students of Greenwich High enjoy the security of an SRO? Do they prefer it? If so, than that is important to the issue as well. If having an SRO makes the general population feel better and allows them to focus on their schoolwork and not worry about the bad seeds, than thats great.

Were you looking for me to go all polar on this issue and say the SRO was Nazi or the student was a punk who deserved a beating? Sorry, this story is more complicated than that. It might just be the case that the occasional tasering is a necessary evil in the new landscape of how school discipline is handled in the Greenwich, and we might all have to be reflective and objective about how we created this atmosphere - and if its worth it - as a community and on a case by case basis as well.

I wish it was easier than that, but its not.

Update: I spoke to a Greenwich High student today and asked him how he felt about the situation. From the look on his face, it has obviously been a big topic of discussion within the school.