The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association is speaking out following a letter to some law enforcement leaders from Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman about school resource officers.
In that letter, she says recent changes in state law do not pertain to SROs’ use of force. Hortman says there’s only one standard use of force, regardless of whether an officer is an SRO or not.
“The focus that they have had is on a portion of the statute, and if they read the entire statute, including the part that we did not change, they will see that the standard remains unchanged,” Hortman said.
More than 30 law enforcement agencies have pulled their SROs from schools over confusion about the law and the possibility of litigation.
Imran Ali is the MPPOA’s General Counsel, and he says that the law creates a “different standard.”
“I have been on the phone for the last several weeks with every attorney that I could possibly think of that specializes in the areas of city, municipal work, and county attorney and even statutory construction,” Ali said. “They all agree that this new law creates a different standard.”
Speaker Hortman says she is committed to continuing the conversation but hopes to get SROs back in school as soon as possible.
She says a special session, as many have called for, is unlikely, and believes whatever questions remain can be handled by having conversations with one another about the clarity of the law.