Monica Garcia, president of the Los Angeles Unified School Board, discusses security patrols at district schools in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut. “We want students to feel safe and able to learn,” she told NBC4’s Toni Guinyard in a report broadcast on Today in LA Monday Jan. 7, 2013.
Los Angeles police officials plan to roll out extra patrols around all 700 elementary and middle schools in LA as part of a district-wide plan to quell fears in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on the East Coast.
Starting Monday -- the official start to the 2013 school year for the Los Angeles Unified School District -- elementary and middle schools will be part of the LAPD’s daily patrol plan.
“We won’t be there all the time, but nobody will know when we will be there,” Beck said two days after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
A 20-year-old man fatally shot his mother at home on Dec. 14, then killed 20 first graders and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School before committing suicide.
The massacre set off the new plan to add security at schools, which bolster the patrols already in place at all LAUSD high schools.
Beck said officers and detectives will be assigned or will "adopt" a school and make beat checks part of their routine patrols.
Beck said officers will be expected to be a strong presence at the schools and develop contacts with school staff, teachers and parents.
He said police will visit schools at different times of the day but there are no plans to pay for overtime.
There is no indication of how long officers will patrol schools through the year.
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About a dozen other public safety agencies that patrol parts of the sprawling LA Unified also planned on increasing visits to both public and private schools beginning this week.
