Milwaukee Police returned to Milwaukee Public Schools Monday for the first time in years following a string of court dates and missed deadlines.
A Milwaukee County judge gave the city and school district until March 15 to implement school resource officers to comply with state law or face thousands of dollars in fines. Since the deadline was a Saturday, the first school day for the resource officers to show up was Monday, March 17.
Watch: SROs returned to MPS schools Monday after more than a year of delays:
According to court documents, officers will work in pairs. MPD coordinated with MPS to identify schools for SRO deployment. The schools identified are Riverside University High School, Bradley Technology and Trade School, North Division High School, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, Hamilton High School, Washington High School, Vincent High School, Madison High School, Rufus King High School, Obama School of Career and Technical Education and Milwaukee Marshall High School.
The files did not disclose why the schools were chosen.
Alicia Walker stood firmly against armed officers entering Rufus King International High School Monday morning.
Walker contacted TMJ4 after her son told her police were at the school.
"It's socializing you to be in a police state. No that's not what this is about. There is a place for the police. This ain't it. These kids don't need that," Walker said.
Walker has one son who graduated from Rufus King International High School and another son who is a current student. She is proud to be a parent at the school.
Walker was outraged that there was no communication to families about where, when and why school resource officers would be deployed.
"I don't want to hear it, 'Well, come to this meeting on such and such a day at such and such a time.' No. You reach out to the parents. Show empathy," Walker stated.
However, others feel differently.
"I don't feel bothered because in Atlanta we usually have police officers in our schools," senior Cameron Jackson told TMJ4.
Jackson, 18, is a student at Bradley Technology and Trade School. He also says there was no direct communication about the change before he saw two officers walking around with a school leader on Monday.
"Why do I want to have them in schools? Because if anything crazy is going like anybody tries to come in the school, the officers can already be there," Jackson explained.
However, the teen feels an opportunity to hear directly from the school resource officers is needed.
"Get to know them, explain what's going on because I had no clue that officers were coming to school," Jackson stated.
38 Milwaukee Police personnel completed SRO training in Milwaukee last week. MPD says that 25 will work in the schools.
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