LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho addresses school safety after Uvalde mass shooting
The Los Angeles Unified superintendent addressed school safety after a gunman opened fire on students and teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The shooter killed 19 children and two teachers.
"I'm tired. I'm fatigued. I'm angry," said Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent Alberto Carvalho.
The shooting has forced schools and police in Southern California to rethink their security policies.
"Good governments are not static," said Carvalho. "They're dynamic and they have to adapt and make decisions on the basis of the latest information, latest trends and threats."
Following the protests of 2020 and the calls to defund the police, Los Angeles School police officers were taken off campuses and moved to a patrol model — unless there was an emergency.
According to the L.A. School Police Chief Leslie Ramirez, the department has lost 133 positions, about a 26% drop from the 510 that were present before the defund movement.
"You have made a soft target even softer," said retired officer Joseph Ivankay.
The drastic cut in manpower hampered the ability to investigate, according to Ivankay who supervised the graveyard shift which is when many of the school threats were uncovered.
"We would investigate those all night," said the 28-year veteran of LA School Police. "We don't have the ability to do that anymore because we don't have officers at night anymore."
The district is currently negotiating a labor contract with the union that represents teachers. Carvalho said that one of the sticking points has been the United Teachers of Los Angeles's desire to keep officers off campuses.
"We know that the greatest impact we can have to prevent such tragedies is logical gun control laws, and we will continue to advocate on this issue," the union said in a statement.
Carvalho said that he plans to unveil a new budget for enhanced security which will include deployments of school police.
