DATE: Thursday, September 25, 1997          TAG: 9709250366

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   74 lines

BOARD TO WEIGH HANDCUFFS IN SCHOOLS

The issue of student safety will be on the agenda again tonight as the School Board considers giving security officers the authority to use handcuffs when violent students, intruders or staffers pose a physical threat to themselves or others.

Norfolk school officials have proposed authorizing handcuffs at a time when the system is being questioned about student property searches to deter drugs and weapons from being taken to school. The district has been challenged and will go to court in November for its random search policy.

The handcuff debate has drawn mixed reviews since being introduced last month. Some board members fear students might view officers as overly aggressive if they use handcuffs.

Board member Anna Dodson said she will request a public hearing to get broader input before voting on the issue.

``I think we need to hear more from the community,'' Dodson said.

The proposal would allow security officers to use handcuffs after verbal control and physical control holds have failed. The coordinator of security would investigate handcuff usage to ensure that proper procedures were followed.

Norfolk's is the only South Hampton Roads school district that doesn't have personnel on school grounds with handcuffs. Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Chesapeake have police officers assigned to high schools and some middle schools armed with handcuffs and guns.

Security officers support using handcuffs, saying the restraints bring a quick end to volatile situations and are preferable to pepper spray, which can spread and create more disorder.

``We're trying to end situations, not cause them,'' said Joseph G. O'Brien, the Norfolk district's coordinator of security.

``We don't see the use of handcuffs in and of themselves causing other problems. We're interested in ending a situation and ensuring it doesn't flare up again.''

Portsmouth has security officers and police officers in the high schools. Detective David Long, who works at I.C. Norcom High School, said he sees the merit of security officers carrying handcuffs.

``There've been times when they've needed them and I'm on the other side of the building,'' Long said. ``And I get there and they're sitting on the kids. People can get hurt. Some of these kids are strong.''

He said he used handcuffs about six times last year to break up fights when he couldn't control the students any other way. The fights were so severe that he arrested the students.

``The quicker they are detained, it stops the confrontation. It ends with the handcuffs.''

Norfolk's unarmed security officers are sworn through the court as ``Conservators of Peace'' and have the same powers and authority as police officers while on school grounds.

They have been trained through the Norfolk Police Department to use handcuffs and have mandatory annual training, O'Brien said. They have the authority to use pepper spray but have done so only rarely in the three years it has been allowed.

Each high school has four security officers, and middle schools have three.

Curtis Long, a security officer at Ruffner Middle School, has worked as an officer for a year and said he hasn't encountered a situation in which he would have used handcuffs. But he believes he should have them for emergencies.

``You can hurt a child, or get hurt, in trying to restrain them physically,'' Long said. ``And while I'm trying to hold a child, I can't do anything else.''

Booker T. Washington freshman Ortoria Hymons said her only concern about officers using handcuffs is the embarrassment of being restrained in front of friends.

``But if the student is out of control, and might hurt other students, they should be handcuffed.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Board member Anna Dodson KEYWORDS: HANDCUFFS NORFOLK PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu