Benavente is lone vote against Fayetteville plan to place SROs. Some data is troubling.

Sheriff Ennis Wright said the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office is currently short-staffed and unable to provide sufficient school resource officers (SROs) and traffic control for all the county schools. Moreover, the Sheriff's Office can only serve schools outside municipal areas. This announcement, made around two months ago, surprised the Cumberland County School Board, the city of Fayetteville, and the towns of Spring Lake and Hope Mills.

Faced with a challenging situation, school board members swiftly sprung into action, with the traditional school year looming just over a month away. Hope Mills has already devised a comprehensive staffing plan with five SROs and 11 traffic control officers. The Sheriff's Office has also stepped up, extending its commitment to provide SROs for another year to Spring Lake.

While Fayetteville presents a more significant challenge, requiring a substantial number of SROs and traffic control officers, Police Chief Kemberle Braden's commitment is unwavering. Despite the two-year timeline to become fully staffed, Chief Braden's words resonate with hope: "I recognize the value of a School Resource Officer program and how it contributes to the concept of community policing."

Troubling racial disparities are cause for concern

However, Fayetteville City Council Member Mario Benavente has expressed reservations about police presence in the schools. He has solicited letters from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, in which they have strongly recommended specific wording for the Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) between the city of Fayetteville and the police department's SRO program.

Benavente's concerns are supported by strong statistical evidence. In the letter to the City Council from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, they cite the years 2022-2023: 21.7% of juvenile referrals originated in Cumberland County Schools, 79.2% of which involved Black students (despite Black Students making up only 45.5% of the district's student population.)

These troubling racial disparities are cause for concern, but it's important to recognize that they may not provide the full picture. In the end, Benavente cast the dissenting vote when the Council moved forth voting 9-1. He said: “When we received that data it was summarily ignored. We fell to the high-pressure sales tactics and fear mongering.”

Schools have become more dangerous places

School resource officers (SROs) have been essential to school safety since the 1950s, and their presence became more prevalent in the 1990s. They further ensure a secure environment for our students, but schools have become more dangerous places for teachers and students, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Two months ago, in Winston-Salem, a male Parkland High School student was accused of slapping a female teacher multiple times during a profanity-filled classroom outburst in front of laughing classmates.

Retired Fayetteville Police Sgt. Donovan Faulkner served as an SRO for one year with the FPD and eight years with the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office. He stated, "I believe that having law enforcement presence in schools is necessary, especially in the post-Columbine mass school shooting era."

Greg West, an at-large school board member for 22 years, stated: "I am proud of how the entire community has come together to make this happen. I firmly believe that our schools will be safer when this transition is over."

Troy Williams is a member of The Fayetteville Observer Community Advisory Board. He is a legal analyst and criminal defense investigator. He can be reached at talk2troywilliams@yahoo.com.