Westhampton Beach Village Police Put Forward Plan To Station Armed Officer In Schools

An armed Village Police officer could soon be stationed inside the Westhampton Beach middle and high schools.A week after a former student went on a shooting spree inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people—including 14 students—Westhampton Beach Village Police Officer Andrew Kirwin asked Village Board members last week to allocate the necessary funding so that an additional officer could be hired, trained and assigned to patrol the district’s middle and high schools.Westhampton Beach Village Police Chief Trevor Gonce, who shared in a subsequent interview that for years he has been working on a plan that would allow him to hire and place a School Resource Officer, or SRO, in the school district, said he would need an additional $55,000, plus benefits, to hire an officer to fill that position. “I’ve been working on this for a long time, not just because of Parkland,” Chief Gonce said. “I already had this on the schedule when this tragedy happened.”He also noted that like Parkland, Westhampton Beach is an affluent neighborhood with many other similarities. “This is the last thing I want to happen on my watch,” Chief Gonce said.Still, he noted that even if the village allocates the necessary funding, the Westhampton Beach Board of Education would have the final say about whether or not an SRO is assigned to the two schools.Board of Education President Suzanne Mensch did not return multiple requests for comment this week.In an email, Superintendent of Schools Michael Radday said he supports the idea of Village Police adding a SRO to his district’s middle and high schools.“We are supportive of the plan to add a school resource officer to our campus, and we will continue to investigate the logistics of the SRO program,” he wrote. “I am not worried about bringing an armed police officer into our schools—to the contrary, I have a great deal of confidence in our police.“I am hopeful that students, parents, and the community will see a school resource officer as an asset to our district and a positive step toward maintaining a safe environment on our campus,” he continued.Board of Education members intend to meet with the Village Board over the next few weeks to hammer out the details of the proposed program.One of the details topping that list will be who will pay for the additional officer. In some instances, SROs are funded by local law enforcement while, in other areas, they are covered by the respective school district. There are also instances where the cost is split between a police department and a school district.“It’s my position that I’d love to see the village fund this,” Chief Gonce said in an interview on Monday. Westhampton Beach Mayor Maria Moore said she and her fellow board members are still reviewing the chief’s request, adding that they still haven’t determined if the requested officer would have to be a full-time employee.“It’s a little too soon to answer that because we don’t know yet the extent of the hours the SRO would be at the school,” Ms. Moore wrote in an email on Monday. She added that she would know more next week after communicating with school administrators. Chief Gonce said that the SRO will be armed “no differently than a police officer on the street.”He continued: “He or she would have a full duty belt with a weapon and a taser.” Though the individual would be armed like a normal police officer, the SRO would also be required to wear many hats, according to Officer Kirwin. In addition to being trained to respond to an active shooter situation, the officer would be charged with building a rapport with the students he or she would be protecting, and also asked to assist with educating students about the dangers of gangs and opioids, for example.“The four ways that an SRO can make the learning environment safe and conducive to learning are prevention, intervention, planning and emergency response,” Officer Kirwin told the Village Board on Wednesday, February 21.However, he also stressed that the SRO would not be asked to implement school policies or to hand out punishments. “He or she does not enforce educational rules,” he said. “He or she can’t suspend students—that is school district’s job.”