Arrest authority reinstated to Pennsylvania school police officers
Harrisburg PA December 4 2019
School police officers in Pennsylvania have had their powers to make arrests restored after being inadvertently taken away earlier this year.
In the recent flurry of bills that Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law was one that addresses a couple of issues related to school safety officers.
Aside from returning arrest powers to school police officers, it extends the deadline for certain school police, resource and unarmed school security officers to complete required training to the start of the next school year rather than the middle of this school year.
It also sets the deadline for armed school security officers to obtain their training by Feb. 28 unless that creates a hardship. In that case, the school’s governing body can extend the deadline up to the start of the 2020-21 school year.
Returning arrest powers to law enforcement officers employed by a public or private school prior to Sept. 2 and who have court approval was important to the 80 school districts across the state that have their own district police force.
Among them is Central Dauphin School District, which employs three officers. Gabriel Olivera, director of safety and security at Central Dauphin, said restoring arrest powers to school police officers allows his officers to better perform their jobs of protecting children.
For the few months of this school year when school police officers had their arrest powers stripped from them, it created a situation that if an individual was detained on school property by a school police officer, they had to wait for a local law enforcement to arrive who could then make the arrest. Then when the case went to court, both officers would have to appear.
Olivera said it was an inconvenience.
pennlive.com
