A director on the St. Paul Public Schools Board of Education is criticizing the district’s decision to temporarily put police officers back in high schools after a fatal stabbing last week, calling it a “status quo white [supremacist] solution.”
Last Friday 15-year-old Devin Scott was stabbed to death at Harding High School during an altercation with 16-year-old classmate Nosakhere Kazeem Holmes, who has now been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the stabbing.
School board director Chauntyll Allen insinuated on Facebook that putting police officers back in schools is racist.
“Folks have been dying to get Police [sic] back in the buildings to monitor our black children,” said Allen. “Although you may think this is what’s best, watch the incarceration number over the next 6 months. Pay attention to the court dockets. The numbers WILL BE exacerbated! We are going backwards at this point.”
“An SRO with a new name is still a killer cop.”
In June 2020 the St. Paul school board voted to remove SROs from its schools after the death of George Floyd, replacing them with school and community support liaisons, per the Pioneer Press. Principals in the district were opposed to the idea.
But in the wake of Scott’s stabbing death, St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joe Gothard announced in a staff email the following Monday that police would return to five district high schools on a “short-term basis.”
“We need Anti racists leaders that don’t rely on status quo white supremacists solutions! [sic]. I don’t know how cops could make our schools more safe,” said Allen, who referenced a recent St. Paul police shooting of a knife-wielding suspect.
“SPPD literally just killed someone that had a knife the other day. It was an undecided decision. One cop tased and one cop shot,” she said.
In response to the St. Paul school board director, the St. Paul Police Federation denounced the “hatred” and “abhorrent drivel” evident in her post.
“A child in a St. Paul Public School was just murdered at the hands of a suspect with a knife. Does this poster who sits on the St. Paul School Board truly believe that a knife isn’t a deadly weapon?” the Federation wrote on Facebook. “Also, if let’s just say a white cop intervened and prevented this from occurring, would the force that cop used to prevent this murder be considered ‘white supremacist’ behavior?”
“So many weak and fake ‘leaders’ don’t call this out for what it is. So sad!!!”
Evan Stambaugh
Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
