December 2022
Councilor Shelley Carroll and Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Chair Rachel Chernos Lin should be ashamed for comments they made on Newstalk 1010 to host Jerry Agar, regarding the issue of the unprecedented violence in TDSB schools and the cancelling of the School Resource Officer (SRO) program, leading to the most violent year since they starting keeping statistics in 1998.
They are NOT listening to the parents, students, teachers, and other school staff, who overwhelmingly advised the TDSB, in a survey conducted by the TDSB, that they wanted the SRO program to continue. It was not through an outside survey, or a Twitter survey, but it was through the TDSB’s own survey, that these results were obtained. The TDSB listened to a tiny fraction, less than 10%, of activists who wanted the police officers out of the schools, claiming that some students, usually of colour, were afraid of the police officers. So, Carrol and Chernos Lin are claiming that it makes schools safer by allowing violence to run wild in the schools.
In my experience as a police officer who served for over 20 years, those who engage in criminal activity don’t like police being around. While some members of minority groups may have had bad experiences with police, or come from countries where police are corrupt, the majority of citizens who supported the SRO program shouldn’t be forced to endure the violence that is plaquing the TDSB schools, just to appease the activists.
If there are police officers out there who are purposely targeting visible minorities for nothing more than being visible minorities, they should face disciplinary action, up to an including dismissal. However, I can tell you that the vast majority of police officers don’t care about the racial ethnicity of those they suspect of committing criminal offences. They just want to see those committing criminal offences behind bars.
To those who want to see police out of their schools and communities (defund the police), I ask you this: when a crime has been committed against you, who will you be calling to do something about it? Cities like New York city, Baltimore and Minneapolis that cut police budgets amid the “Defund The Police” movement, are now reversing those cuts. I guess we really do need police officers out there after all.
Sources: https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-reverse-defunding-the-police-amid-rising-crime-11622066307, https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/defund-the-police-democrats/index.html, https://www.iheartradio.ca/newstalk-1010/audio/podcasts/tdsb-chair-rachel-chernos-lin-talks-with-moore-in-the-morning-about-a-report-that-says-the-board-is-on-track-for-most-violent-year-on-record-if-trends-continue-1.18911389?mode=Article, https://www.iheartradio.ca/newstalk-1010/audio/podcasts/jerry-agar-for-moore-round-one-december-8th-1.18911623?mode=Article.
