[ti:Protests Cause US Officials to Rethink Use of School Police Officers] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]An increasing number of American cities [00:04.40]are rethinking the presence of law enforcement officers in their schools. [00:13.24]City officials are considering ways to answer the concerns of thousands of people [00:20.52]who have protested the death of George Floyd. [00:24.72]In some areas, young protesters have been demanding the removal of officers from schools. [00:34.80]George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota [00:44.00]after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. [00:51.92]Floyd was handcuffed and lying on the ground. [00:56.48]He can be heard saying "I can't breathe" in videos of his arrest and death. [01:05.48]Minneapolis suspended its school resource officer program last week. [01:12.96]School district officials in nearby Saint Paul, Minnesota, [01:19.60]and in Denver, Colorado, are considering doing the same. [01:26.84]Protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia [01:30.24]have made the end of its school resource officer program one of their demands. [01:37.24]School resource officers are law enforcement officers [01:42.80]who are responsible for keeping schools and their students safe. [01:48.52]Along with enforcing the law, [01:51.56]the resource officers are expected to act as unofficial counselors [01:57.56]and provide guidance on issues such as bullying and drunk driving. [02:04.64]Portland Public Schools, the largest school district in Oregon, [02:11.28]announced last week it was cutting ties with the Portland Police Bureau. [02:18.36]Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said he would also discontinue using [02:24.84]school resource officers in two of the city's smaller districts. [02:30.96]"Leaders must listen and respond to community," Wheeler said. [02:36.92]We must disrupt the patterns of racism and injustice." [02:42.84]Many in Portland have voiced support for the decision to remove the officers. [02:49.56]But others raised immediate concerns about student safety [02:54.64]in the event of a school shooting or other emergency. [03:00.68]Mo Canady is head of The National Association of School Resource Officers. [03:08.76]He described any decision to remove the officers from schools as a "knee-jerk reaction." [03:17.84]In other words, the decision happened very quickly and without much thought. [03:24.36]Canady added that the actions by a few school districts [03:29.64]could cause many other districts to make the same decision. [03:34.12]He said such moves cause harm to students around the country. [03:39.56]Canady called Floyd's death "atrocious" [03:43.32]and the actions of the Minneapolis police "evil." [03:47.64]But he said that when school resource officer programs are "done right," [03:54.52]they can be good examples of community-based policing. [03:59.36]But critics of the programs say the officers' presence [04:04.72]can also lead to the criminalization of students, [04:09.12]especially students of color. [04:12.32]In 2015, a school resource officer in South Carolina was caught on video [04:19.44]forcing a female student on the ground and pulling her across a classroom. [04:26.16]The student had refused to surrender her phone to the officer. [04:32.24]There are an estimated 25,000 school resource officers nationwide, Canady said. [04:39.88]Across the United States, 43 percent of public schools [04:45.84]had an armed law enforcement officer present at least once a week [04:51.56]in the 2015-2016 school year. [04:56.12]That was the last year the National Center for Education Statistics studied the issue. [05:04.12]I'm Ashley Thompson. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM