I write this as a City Council member, not as a citizen. This is not a law or character debate. This is a safety debate. You’re never going to convince the other side that they are wrong or that you are right. Viewpoints never change due to a social media argument. Ever.
Long-term solutions, unfortunately, are decided by politicians, most of whom could care less about your needs or your family’s needs. The “thoughts and prayers” without real change will continue as long as we keep electing the same people. Most politicians can’t even get along to agree on a simple bill, let alone do what’s right for the safety of our children nationwide.
Until that day comes, we have to come up with a short-term solution for better safety here. Polk County, FL has come up with a remarkable program called “School Safety Guardians.” Guardians could be parents, moms, dads, etc. who are the extra eyes and ears for anything at the schools that might be suspicious. If needed they can be trained by the local police department, if armed. Not a simple class, but fully trained. But more importantly they are there, with radios, to call staff or the resource officer in case anything looks suspicious. The purpose is to have a “neighborhood watch” for all of the schools. The goal is stopping something before it happens.
It’s time for the schools and the city to put our money where our mouth is and start putting child safety first. In government, we tend to want to drop remarkable amounts of money on pretty things. But at the end of the day, those things do not compare to the security of our children. I have been guilty of that myself. It’s time to stop the madness and come together to have extra eyes and ears in the hallways and outside the buildings at all of our schools until America comes up with a better solution. Bad people will find a way into a place, regardless of your locks, your cameras… by the time they are in, it’s over for the defenseless.
The other aspect is simply this: We need to start putting mental health and the red flag system to work in a more effective way. Every one of these people committing these acts had serious problems. Deep-rooted issues that had red flags and they were either ignored or glossed over for the most part. Mental health is killing this country. Stress, the pressure for young people to be accepted and loved, is higher than ever. Their world is not the world a lot of us older people grew up in. Giving them a pill to pop and telling them they will be OK is simply not the answer. We need more therapists and more counselors directly involved with kids throughout the formative years. We need red flag and social media checkers. Because once we’ve lost them, we might have lost them forever.
Some do not believe in religion and that’s OK. But pastors and youth ministers are an incredible source of a way to reach out to young people who are struggling. Here in Middletown, we have some remarkable people who would love to work with struggling youth, to really help them know that they are loved and let them know that they don’t need to commit heinous acts to gain acceptance.
I’m challenging the city and the schools to step up and do the right thing. The money is there to make needed changes now. At what cost do we keep sitting back waiting for something to happen here?
I clearly do not have all the answers — not even close, but I know that what we are doing is absolutely not working in any way, shape or form.
Rodney Muterspaw is a current Middletown Council member and former police chief.
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