KTLA

L.A. school board to consider phasing out school police under intensifying demands

Demonstrators gather outside Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters.(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Board of Education next week will consider phasing out the school police, essentially eliminating the department over the next four years, a proposal that comes after more than a week of intensifying demands to do so by student advocacy groups and the leadership of the teachers union.

Two other competing school board resolutions also call for a review of police operations, but not an outright termination of the department.

The proposal to eliminate the department over time is being brought forward by Monica Garcia, the board’s longest serving member, as an emergency motion, to bypass the normal requirement that a board resolution be presented at one meeting and then acted on at a later meeting.

The debate over school police in Los Angeles has flared since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd, who was Black, died after a white officer pressed his knee against his neck. Protests targeting police brutality against Black people erupted across the nation, including in Los Angeles.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.