PEORIA, Ill. – You may soon see some of the school resource officers in Peoria District 150 responding to incidents happening outside school grounds.
That’s part of a new memorandum of understanding being reached between Peoria Police, and Peoria Public Schools — especially as it relates to things like curfew violations.
“We’re going to unveil a vehicle that’s going to be a curfew vehicle,” said Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria, to the PPS Board Monday. “We want the community to know: you see this vehicle coming down the street, there’s going to be [School Resource Officers] in it…we need kids to be at home. We need parents to be responsible and make sure their kids are at home.”
Echevarria says school resource officers have relationships with students the police might not.
Also, he says police and SRO’s will be in constant communication, especially about weekend incidents, in order to help try and prevent any school-based violence.
In addition, on the issue of school-based violence:
“We will be there. We are not Uvalde (Texas). What occurred there is an embarrassment to law enforcement, and that will not occur here,” said Echevarria.
He said every police officer, on-duty and off, will respond if there is any sort of mass violence incident in a school. Echevarria says if they don’t, they shouldn’t be on the force.
