LA school district rejects measure to defund campus police

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The nation’s second-largest school district rejected a proposal Tuesday to defund campus police.

The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District voted against a measure that would have made staggered reductions in the School Police Department budget, reducing it by 50% in the 2021-2022 school year and by 90% in 2024.

Board member Monica Garcia wanted the funds to be used for helping Black students in “highest-need schools.”

Two other school policing proposals also were rejected in split votes.

The board heard nearly 12 hours of public comment, with most speakers calling for reducing or eliminating the force of about 460 officers. Critics have said Black and other minority students are disproportionately singled out for arrests by campus police.

“You can’t expect us to do as well in school as white students if we feel criminalized every time we walk into campus,” said Amara Abdullah, a freshman at Hamilton High School and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles Youth Vanguard.

Calls to defund or eliminate law enforcement agencies have gained strength following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white officer pressed a knee to his neck in Minnesota.

The board of United Teachers Los Angeles, the powerful teachers union, recently voted to call for defunding the school police department and using $63 million of its $70 million budget for counseling and other student services.

However, some board members said they wouldn’t want to defund police unless there was another plan for guaranteeing students’ safety.

“I would regret for the rest of my life if I left any student vulnerable, any student in danger,” member Richard Vladovic said.

Henry Anderson, a school police officer who is Black, told the board that officers are getting a bad rap.

“I put that uniform on every morning because I took an oath to protect kids in the district,” said Anderson, whose children attend school in the district. “We’re not there to victimize and brutalize or hook and book.”

District police last year handled more than 100,000 calls, including 150 threats of campus mass shootings.

Although police have never fired a gun on campus, there have been concern about other uses of force. Last week, school Superintendent Austin Beutner said he would recommend that the board prohibit police from using pepper spray and carotid holds - which stop blood flow to the neck - before the school year resumes in August.