By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
The Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office will assist in providing manpower for increased school security, members of the local public school district’s board of trustees learned Thursday.
School Superintendent Dr. Carlos Rios told members of the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees during a special budget workshop that school district staff is proposing the addition of nine police officers – one lieutenant and eight regular officers – to the school district police department for the coming year.
Until those officers can be hired, trained and state-certified, Rios said, “Because there’s not enough police officers to go around, maybe at one or two campuses, rather than hire police officers, we can use the money that’s allocated to hire off-duty police officers or sheriff’s deputies.”
“Maybe the sheriff could handle, say, Garfield, and he would rotate people in and out of there. Maybe the city could help us out with another elementary campus, and they could rotate people in and out of there. That way we could hold off until we get people certified through the academy,” the superintendent added.
Both County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. and Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez attended the Thursday board meeting, and after the board had completed its discussion of budgeted items, which included the request for nine more police officers for the school district force, board member Joshua Overfelt said he wanted to ask Martinez a question.
Overfelt asked about the deputies Martinez had pledged to work at district schools until it could recruit and train its own additional officers.
“So you fully back that, and is the sheriff’s office willing to help ensure the safety of the students of our community? I know you are already stretched thin with Stonegarden and other things; you’re very busy, I know, but are you willing to help us out if needed?” Overfelt asked.
“I’ve spoken to (school district police chief) Chief (Joe) Faz and Dr. Rios a couple of days ago, and we’re committed to doing whatever we need to do to keep our community safe. So, out of the 47 officers that we do have, I took a poll today of just the patrol division, which is 21 officers, and I’m still waiting on responses from four, but the ones I talked to, they’re all willing to step up to the plate and keep our schools safe,” Martinez replied.
He explained how the officers, whose shifts vary, would handle the additional school assignments.
“So it would be on their days off that they’d be working (at the schools), so I’m fixing to put the (county) judge on the spot, because I’m going to ask for additional deputies also, but until we get everything up to par, I think we need to support each other and do what we need to do, not only to keep our community safe, but our schools safe,” Martinez said.
“I greatly appreciate that,” Overfelt said.
Board secretary Linda Guanajuato-Webb said at one time the sheriff’s office had deputies assigned to the schools.
Martinez replied those deputies were designated “school resource officers,” adding that program existed before he was sheriff and before the school district had its own police department.
“Thanks for stepping up to the plate, you and Judge Owens,” Guanajuato-Webb said.
Board member Rebekah “Becky” Luna Chavez asked how long the sheriff could assign deputies to patrol the district’s campuses.
“So what we will do until the school (district) feels safe, if they get the officers they’re asking for, until you get them trained and as long as funding is there from the school district, it will be a secondary employment for those deputies willing to work on their days off,” Martinez said.
The sheriff assured her that his office would “not do anything half-way” and reiterated of the 17 deputies he spoke to personally, all were willing to participate.
“Thank you, that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Chavez added.
Owens also spoke to the group.
“I can tell you that we’ve been in conversation with every one of our commissioners, and anything we can do to help, we’re here. Dr. Rios, we called you last week. We’re here to support you. I think law enforcement and the school needs to make a decision, and we sort of need to take a back seat until you all can figure it out. Anything we can do, we’re here. We’re here to help,” Owens said.
“We’re here, as a county, to anything that we need to do, as the sheriff said, to make sure that not only the students are safe, but that the general public feels that we’re moving forward in protecting our kids, protecting our staff and protecting the citizens of Val Verde County, so anything that we can do as a county, I will tell you, I’ve had conversations with the commissioners, and we’re just here to help, whatever you all need,” Owens added.
After Owens spoke, board member Jesus E. Galindo commented, “Judge Owens, you hit the nail on the head, I think before the perception was that we don’t want to make the schools look like a prison, we don’t want to lock the schools down. I will tell you right now, I’ll take safety over perception any day. I think we all agree that the safety of our kids and our staff goes over any perception of what people think the schools look like.”
He said parents will always be welcome on school campuses, “but anybody who wants to do harm to school, we need to make it very difficult for them to come and harm our children and our staff.”
Owens said the board will likely “be criticized for doing too much or not doing enough, but you all need to be able to sleep at night with your decisions” and agreed that it will probably result in a more cumbersome process to get onto school campuses, “but it’s for the safety of our kids, and I can live with that.”
“We want to disable the ability of anybody that wants to do harm to our kids and . . . I believe this entire board is agreed to make sure our kids are safe and in August, parents are going to feel safe sending their kids back to school and the teachers and the staff are going to feel safe,” Galindo added.
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