A school shooting might have occurred at Port Townsend High School if it weren’t for the school’s police officer.
That was one of the reasons why PTHS principal Carrie Ehrhardt urged City Council to keep a School Resource Officer stationed with her students and teachers. In a letter to be considered at tonight’s meeting of Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Public Safety and Law Enforcement, Ehrhardt pushed back on suggestions to end the SRO program. Sharp questioning of the Police Chief by members of the committee at an earlier meeting, and the removal of police from other school districts as a “reform” or “reimagining” of law enforcement have prompted fears that Port Townsend may end its successful police in schools program that has been in place, except for 4 years during the last recession, since Ehrhardt arrived as a teacher in 2001.
“There is a natural link between safer schools and safer communities,” Erhardt told council. When the SRO program was discontinued from 2006 to 2010, “our community saw a significant increase in crimes being committed by teenagers.”
In 2015, the current SRO, Officer Jeremy Vergin, was able to obtain the police records of a student who had enrolled in PTHS. They showed he had such a violent history that the school put him on a home based program and did not permit him on campus. Unhappy with this arrangement, the family moved. This student committed the North Thurston High School shooting a month later. It took an extremely brave and fast thinking teacher to tackle the student as he was firing a .357 pistol.
A year later, a teacher with severe mental health issues returned to school and his former classroom filled with students. Officer Vergin was able to diffuse the situation quickly because he was on campus. “If not for Officer Vergin,” Erhardt asks, “what would have happened during the additional minutes waiting for law enforcement to arrive?”
“In closing,” wrote Ehrhardt, “my hope of the committee is that you make decisions based on the community we live in, and want we want for the citizens and youth of Port Townsend, instead of reacting to emotions based on circumstances in other cities, that do not represent PT.”
You can read Ehrhardt’s entire letter by clicking on this link.
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our “About” page for more information.
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