The impact of pulling SROs in Minnesota

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. (FOX 9) - What’s been the impact of Minnesota law enforcement agencies pulling school resource officers following a law change last year? FOX 9 asked one department to explain.

"There's no question: I think law enforcement as a whole was blindsided by the law," said Chief Mark Bruley from the Brooklyn Park Police Department.

Two weeks before the start of the 2023-24 school year, Bruley learned from school administrators about the legislative change placing new restrictions on school resource officers, or SROs. As a result, it was unclear whether school employees, including SROs, could put a student in certain physical holds.

"We expect the men and women that wear this uniform to make a split-second decision whether I can grab you, take you to the ground or arrest you, and if they're wrong, they get criminally charged? We have to be better," Bruley said.

The law change meant legally, his SROs didn't know whether could intervene in fights, or physically restrain students if necessary. He also pointed to a lack of consistency between the decisions from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.

In September, Bruley pulled his six officers from the Anoka-Hennepin School District and Osseo Area Schools.

"In one particular case, an officer had trespassers on the property and couldn't get them removed because they were not meeting the threshold of being able to use any type of contact or force. They refused to leave. And he really became so frustrated. He just said, ‘I'm not doing this anymore,’" Bruley said.

The Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association told FOX 9 at the peak of this issue last year, nearly 40 agencies pulled SROs from schools, although many have since returned.

Bruley said now, response times to schools are minutes instead of seconds, and officers are responding to school buildings they don't know well without relationships with students.

"The difference is now our patrol officers – our police officers patrolling the streets – are responding to 911 calls at our schools. We average about three 911 calls a day to our schools, where those calls would have gone right to an SRO who would have gone in and triaged it and again got a better outcome than a police officer just showing up," Bruley explained.

A spokesperson for the Osseo Area Schools said the district’s SRO program continues to be suspended because of the law change. Schools in the district were instructed to call 911 for emergency and non-emergency situations during this time.

"The safety and well-being of our students and staff remains our highest priority. Our schools have a strong safety plan, which includes our SRO program. Each officer has spent time cultivating positive relationships within our school communities. They’re a part of our Osseo Area Schools family and are very missed," the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Anoka-Hennepin School District, the state's largest school district, said the City of Coon Rapids has returned SROs to four schools, but that's the extent of the district’s coverage at this time. District officials said there have been times when officers had to respond to an incident that would have been quickly processed by an SRO.

Anoka-Hennepin district officials point specifically to an incident on Jan. 4 at Champlin Park High School when a falling piece of wood was mistaken for a gunshot, and the school had to be placed on lockdown.  Administrators said they’re confident if there were an SRO in the building, the incident would have been avoided.

Chief Bruley agreed, and he said he is encouraged by the new proposal unveiled at the Capitol on Monday.

"There is a lot of support to get this thing corrected and clarified so that we can get our SROs back, and I'm super optimistic about that," he said.