A police training exercise that included personnel from the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns with students and staff at three Albemarle County public schools on Tuesday.
We learned about the potentially scary situation from a tipster who shared a text that parents had received from the school system at the end of the school day.
“Around the start of the school day, four police vehicles, including two Department of Homeland Security vehicles with the Federal Protection Service, were seen parked near the Boys & Girls Club,” the message, signed by Stephen Saunders, the principal at Greer Elementary School, Ashby Johnson, the principal at Journey Middle School, and Damean Barfield, the principal at Albemarle High School, reported to parents.
There’d be good reason for school staff, and students and parents, to view the presence of Homeland Security personnel on school grounds with alarm.
ICYMI
- Albemarle County: Authorities working to maintain the trust of immigrant communities
- Plain clothes, masks, unmarked vehicles: ICE agents target immigrants in Virginia
The Trump administration has made a public spectacle of its efforts to round up and deport Latino immigrants, with headlines from jurisdictions across the country noting that the feds have been partnering with local police to raid schools, businesses and court buildings.
Against that backdrop, back in January, Albemarle County Schools Superintendent Matthew S. Haas issued a statement to clarify that the school system “does not, and may not, and will not ask students or families about their immigration status.”
“We understand the concern about immigration officials potentially appearing at our schools,” Haas said in the Jan. 24 statement. “Recently, I was asked about the role of our School Resource Officers. Let me be clear: students or their family members will not be questioned, detained, or taken into custody on ACPS premises except when a law enforcement officer presents a valid warrant for an arrest on criminal charges.
“Even in those rare circumstances, our protocol requires school-based leaders to notify the School Division Counsel, who will manage all interactions with law enforcement,” Haas said.
That’s the context, then, for this police training group showing up to conduct a training exercise on an Albemarle High School practice field.
Police in localities across the country are disappearing people left and right, and from all anybody could tell, a group of Albemarle County Police officers and DHS personnel take their attack dogs for a round of morning calisthenics at the high school.
Not cool.
Turns out, the dogs weren’t attack dogs, but rather, bomb-sniffing dogs, and per a contact within the ACPD, the decision to use the school practice field for the training exercise was nothing nefarious, just a bad decision made on the ground, but you can forgive people for assuming the worst, given the current climate.
The text from the three school principals reported that “(n)one of the officers attempted to enter any of our school buildings, and all students and staff remained safe throughout the event.”
According to the text, the school leaders noted that they inquired with the police group into what was going on, and were told that “local law enforcement had chosen to conduct a training exercise with their dogs on the Albemarle High School practice field.”
“This decision was made without any notification to or permission from our school division,” the text went on.
“We understand that the presence of law enforcement vehicles and dogs on or near school property can cause confusion and distress, especially when unexpected. Please know that we take any disruption to our campus seriously, and we are following up with the appropriate agencies to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again,” the text concluded.
That communication between the school system and the PD has already taken place, according to Logan Bogert, the public information officer for the county government.
“Yesterday, a local K9 Training Group that ACPD is a part of chose to conduct an explosive detection training with their dogs on the Albemarle High School practice field for approximately one hour,” Bogert wrote to me by email on Wednesday.
“This group regularly trains together and has used this area for training on numerous occasions, albeit without notification to or with explicit permission from the school division. Chief Reeves has personally followed up with ACPD’s K9 Unit to ensure this does not happen again in the future,” Bogert wrote.
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Chris Graham
