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Local Activists Call For Removal Of Resource Officers From South Bend Schools

Gemma DiCarlo / WVPE Public Radio

Activists with the local NAACP and Black Lives Matter chapter are calling for the removal of police officers from South Bend Community Schools, saying their presence violates state law.

Indiana code requires school districts to have a contract or memorandum of understanding with the local police department that clearly lays out the responsibilities of a school resource officer. 

Local NAACP President Trina Robinson said after “numerous conversations” with school administrators over the last eight months, the NAACP has yet to see that agreement.

 

“What we’ve been told was that there was a ‘gentleman’s agreement,’" she said. "Nothing written, simply an understanding about how we operate.” 

 

Robinson said until the district can produce that understanding, having resource officers in South Bend schools is a violation of state law. 

 

Indiana code also requires resource officers to undergo 40 hours of training before being assigned to a school.

 

"If there is documentation of that, they need to produce it, and then we can evaluate whether that is, in fact, enforced," Robinson said.

 

In a statement, Superintendent Todd Cummings said the district does have an MOU with the police department:

 

"The Corporation does have an MOU from the 2012-13 academic year, which, according to the district's legal counsel, is considered an 'indefinite MOU,' lasting until one or both parties formally end the agreement," Cummings wrote. "Chief Crittendon, Mayor Mueller and I have been in  conversation and plan to update the current MOU. At this time, we are not exploring the removal of SROs from South Bend schools. Since the number of police recruits is down, the current arrangement between the South Bend Police Department and South Bend Community School Corporation may need to be restructured."

 

The South Bend Police Department also issued a lengthy response to the groups' claims, and published the "objectives, regulations and functions" of its school resource officers program.

 

Cummings said the school corporation plans to launch a community survey about school resource officers so that administrators can "hear directly from students, parents, teachers and other staff on the issue." 

 

BLM-SB and the NAACP's call comes just days after body cam footage surfaced of a South Bend Empowerment Zone administrator asking an SPBD officer to leave one of their schools.

 

Contact Gemma atgdicarlo@wvpe.orgor follow her on Twitter at@gemma_dicarlo.

 

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Gemma DiCarlo came to Indiana by way of Athens, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Georgia in 2020 with a degree in Journalism and certificates in New Media and Sustainability. She has radio experience from her time as associate producer of Athens News Matters, the flagship public affairs program at WUGA-FM.