Ever wonder what the relationship is between our local schools and the sheriff?
We stumbled upon an example of how they proactively work together recently. As you may know, there was an incident of a child being shot at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard earlier this week.
The moment the incident happened, the Malibu/Lost Hills station (LA County Sheriff) moved into “threat assessment” mode, and started down the path to see what was the appropriate action to be taken within LVUSD.
This “threat assessment” check list included:
* notifying the detective bureau lieutenant and sergeant
* notifying the watch command/sergeant
* contacting school administrators to advise of the incident
* sending patrol units messages via the Mobile Data Terminals to conduct school patrol checks
* review recent Juvenile reports, family violence, and fight reports for possible signs of additional trouble
* mobilizing the “J-Team” to schools (e.g., contact the school administrators and counselors to gather info on recently suspended, threatening, troubled, or recently involved in fights students).
* Monitor on-line chat rooms
* brief patrol units
* monitor news articles about the incident.
This entire list was put into action immediately and all items checked off on the threat assessment list above quickly. The goal, obviously, is that if an incident were to spread, or have other ramifications, that the school system and the Sheriff Dept. would be prepared to handle it. Furthermore, the Sheriff also looks to “sensitize school officials to the elements behind the incident. The hope is that sensitization will help the schools provide the Sheriff with any troubling precursors, so that they can address issues prior to an incident happening.”
While the relationship reaches far beyond this one example, it is a good example of the type of relationship that LVUSD and the Malibu/Lost Hills station (LA County Sheriff) has, and we thought it might interest you.
