2 Tri-Cities police agencies pulled officers from schools. Blame the pandemic

Kennewick police have pulled their school resource officers from middle and high school campuses while most students are learning at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

The move this week frees up five officers to help on daily patrols, especially at a time when the city is dealing with staffing issues, according to Lt. Aaron Clem.

“There are not very many kids in school and ... with COVID and people being out sick and just needing to hire more officers, we are reallocating that resource to patrol for now,” he told the Tri-City Herald.

“When the kids go back to school, whenever that is, the SROs will go back to school as well,” he said.

School resource officers, or SROs, are uniformed police officers who are assigned to a particular school or schools to help keep students and staff safe.

They help with issues or incidents on campus, and call in patrol officers for backup if needed.

School districts and police departments share the cost of the SROs.

Shane Edinger, Pasco School District’s public affairs director, said the Pasco Police Department pulled their SROs back into regular duty in the early days of the shutdown last spring once kids no longer were in the classroom.

“They are continuing in that role until we bring high school and middle school students back for in-person instruction,” said Edinger.

Before the closure, the district had five school resource officers assigned to the two high schools and three middle schools.

Richland has two SROs who are based at the high schools, but will cover the district’s other campuses as needed.

“Ever since we started bringing our students (who are) receiving special education services into all our schools in September, our SROs have been present,” said Ty Beaver, the Richland School District’s director of communications.

“They will continue to be in schools, especially now as we recently began bringing some additional students back into middle and high schools for in-person support.”

Kennewick SRO officers

In Kennewick, one officer is assigned to each of the three high schools, while the five middle schools are covered by two officers.

Lt. Clem said the Kennewick Police Department has been in need of more officers for some time, and now with COVID restrictions on hiring interviews it has become even more difficult to hire officers. That whole process has slowed down significantly, he said.

On top of it, a number of officers have been taken off the streets to quarantine and prevent any possible spread of the virus.

“We’re just trying to backfill those spots because, at the end of the day, patrol really is the backbone of the police department and it’s where the most necessity is for a police department,” said Clem. “So we want to make sure that patrol is covered first and, once patrol is covered, we can start filling those specialty positions.”

Kennewick has nearly 100 commissioned officers, which includes command staff and specialty positions like detectives, SROs and traffic. It currently has about 40 to 45 officers on patrol.

Clem added that by shifting resources right now to where they are really needed, it gives “a couple more bodies on the road that help us cover the calls for service and help keep the community safe.”