Consider, if you will, how the fear of violence has contributed to the flight of those with economic means to private schools. Again, I stress the actual number of violent acts is not the issue of greatest concern. It's the fear of violence that does the most harm to our educational system. This fear is fueled by the media misrepresentation of facts surrounding individual incidents, political grandstanding to illicit constituents support and the continuous castigation of our public schools. Diminishing the fear of violence is every police chief's greatest challenge.
Fear is why our children, and sometimes teachers, arm themselves.
Fear is what causes some students to react violently to simple stresses. Fear is what makes it hard to hire quality teachers in selected communities, and fear is what motivated this discussion today. Although Los Angeles has a 50-year history of employing some form of security service, our police department wasn't established until 1984. The school district's authority to employ its own police department required specific state legislation. When asked why a school district would divert educational dollars to buy services that county or city police should be providing, I will always answer service dissatisfaction and control.