Salem Police officers arrested a middle-school student as part of the recent investigation into threats made against the Parrish and Houck Middle School campuses on a social media platform. Police dispatch center began receiving multiple calls from concerned parents regarding threats on Sunday.

The Police Department and Salem-Keizer Public Schools worked with the assistance from the FBI to determine the source of the alarming messages and arrested a 12-year-old Salem-Keizer Public Schools student involved in the incident. Detectives confirmed the threats were not credible, and the safety of the schools was never in jeopardy.

Within a day there was a drive-by shooting in front of Jefferson High School in Portland that left a student in the hospital with a shoulder injury. The second incident in a month.

In the last 27 years, Oregon has witnessed four in school shootings. That is four too many. In 1998, a 15-year-old began shooting at Thurston High in Springfield leaving 29 victims with four fatalities. In 2007, a 15-year-old Springwater Trail High, Gresham, student shot from outside at the windows of two classrooms with a high-powered rifle leaving ten victims. In 2014, a 15-year-old shot a student and then himself after wounding a teacher at Troutdale High School. In 2015, a 26-year-old man entered Snyder Hall, Umpqua Community College, killing nine people and wounding another eight.

These young people are still fresh in minds of parents. Many grew up respecting law enforcement and never expected to see police in the halls of our schools, but then the unthinkable happened and we welcomed their friendly faces to protect our children.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Then the forces of BLM dominated the legislative environment, and the Senate Interim Committee on Education, chaired by Senator Michael Dembrow, in 2021 introduced SB 238. The bill prohibited district school boards or superintendents from approving a contract or other agreement that would provide for members of law enforcement to be assigned to schools or school district and redistributes the funds. The bill did not pass out of committee before adjournment. The bill followed passage of a law in 2017 that allows school districts to ban concealed handguns on school grounds.

We've gone from fear tactics over school shootings and providing security, fencing schools and requiring ID to enter, to appeasing rioters entertaining their tales of fear, to removing security from some schools and making them gun free zones. The racist stories told during the riots did not reflect any incidents with school security. Quite the opposite. They told stories of friendship, support and kindness. It’s been six years since the last shooting incident at a school in Oregon.

That doesn’t mean the law enforcement presence isn’t needed any more, it does mean their presence has had a positive impact.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2022-11-15 07:46:20

Last Update: 2022-11-15 12:51:13