Marco Island police chief looks to hire 3 more officers to patrol schools

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“Whenever these school tragedies occur, the entire nation finds itself standing in the reactive line waiting for the political window to turn,” said Denis Morales.

Morales lives on Marco Island and doesn’t want to wait any longer for better protection for children in schools. He and other parents want full-time resource officers at Marco schools.

“I have a six-year-old who goes to the elementary school and I have my wife as a school teacher. Soon enough he will be attending the middle school and later on the high school so this is an issue that is very important to me,” Morales said.

The Marco Island Police Department says it needs to hire three new officers to patrol schools at a cost of $300,000.

“Traditionally in school resource officers throughout the country, the officer would stop in some schools, spend some time and move onto the next schools,” said Al Schettino, police chief in Marco Island.

After Parkland, Schettino reassigned officers for full-time coverage at schools, versus the part-time they had. That cost about $18,000 in overtime through the end of the school year.

“It’s not just Chief Al Schiettino and the police department; it’s the community coming together to say, ‘hey, we need to protect our most valuable treasures—our children’,” Schettino said.

Some people say they don’t agree with paying that to add officer to schools, but many other say you can’t put a price tag on safety.

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