Pocatello PD plan would put officer equipment in schools

Student safety was the topic of discussion at a Pocatello-Chubbuck school board meeting on Tuesday, where a proposal by the Pocatello Police Department would bring more guns into the schools, but only in the hands of officers.

The District 25 school board met to go over the current rules when it comes to firearms in schools and student safety, and say they are focusing on what police school resource officers can do to increase safety.

“We believe that law enforcement is trained to do that work. Teachers and school employees are trained to teach children and nurture children. We don’t get into their domain,” Superintendent Mary Vagner said.

Pocatello oolice asked for a safe way to keep potentially necessary tools at the safety, a gun-safe set up at the SRO office in each school would give officers somewhere to keep a rifle as well as secure any evidence collected at the school.

“Anytime you get the opportunity to make it a little bit safer to give your officers the tools that are accessible to them during the day, those are the things I want to do for them,” Pocatello Police Chief Scott Marchand said.

Currently, Marchand said officers don’t know who has access to the SRO office, so they don’t feel comfortable leaving anything there.

Marchand said he wants to get the gun safes installed quickly.

“I don’t want to be in a position where if something were to occur, that we’re sitting there going, ‘We wanted to do this yesterday,'” Marchand said.