Thread by @tbh4justice

We must urgently resist the call for more guns in schools. Cops don't stop school mass shooting. In fact, studies show the presence of cops INCREASES fatalities in school shootings---in addition to the egregious, daily violence cops commit against Black, brown, & poor youth. 1/10

https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1529239706214481920

After Columbine and Sandy Hook, electeds mandated cops in schools---purportedly to keep kids safe. It is an objective failure. Studying 40 years of school shootings revealed 3X fatalities when cops were present compared to no cops in school. 2/10

mprnews.org/story/2021/02/…

It's not just that cops don't prevent mass shootings. They have no obligation to help during an attack. When cops in Parkland hid as 17 kids were murdered, families sued. A judge said cops have no duty to protect youth from mass school shootings. 3/10 washingtonpost.com/education/2018…

Even though they do not prevent violence, nearly 60% of schools pay cops to be in schools---at great costs. What don't kids have?
1.7 million have no counselors
3 million have no nurse
6 million have no psychologist
10 million have no social worker. 4/10

aclu-wa.org/story/school-r…

What happens if you add more cops? Typical kid behavior is criminalized.

Youth are arrested for:
bad grades
tardiness
skipping class
burping
criticizing school cops

Cops in schools also decrease high school graduation & college enrollment. 5/10

School cops are there to maintain the racist status quo. They put youth on a path to human caging, with 61,000 arrests and a suspension every 2 seconds, and Black children 2.4 times more likely than white students to be arrested. 6/10
childrensdefense.org/blog/this-yjam…

The racial implications are disturbing, if predictable:
Black children make up 15% of all children in
US schools, but are 33% of the children arrested, despite research showing that children of color don't misbehave more than their white counterparts. 7/10 indrc.indiana.edu/tools-resource…

In Long Beach, school cops fired into a moving car filled with students, killing youth inside. 8/10 news.yahoo.com/long-beach-sch…

If we want schools to be safe, there are easy, tested steps to take (spoiler alert, none of them involve cops or guns). Provide:

mental health care
counselors, nurses, & social workers
restorative/trauma-responsive practices

Read more @adv_project advancementproject.org/wp-content/upl…

9/10

Mass killings like those in Buffalo/TX mask the violence of child poverty, lack of health care, child caging, family separation, and the anti-Black racism in which US policy is rooted. The only hope is to organize to make change. Find your community and make it happen.
10/10