Almost 30 years ago, two teens were shot to death at point-blank range in the hallway of Thomas Jefferson High School, just one hour before Mayor David Dinkins was due to arrive for a visit. In 2017, a student at Wildlife Conservation High School is stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by another student who claimed he was being bullied. There were no metal detectors or scanning in those schools on the day of the homicides. Scanning was brought in after the homicides. There were no homicides in New York City public schools from 1992 through 2017. This was no accident. School Safety Agents, under the NYPD, with the use of scanning and metal detectors, documented a huge number of confiscated weapons (boxcutters, switchblades, steak knives, knives, metal knuckles, mace, and firearms, loaded and unloaded) over that 25-year period. What is not documented is the number of weapons where metal detectors became a deterrent.

The politicians think they know what is happening in our schools, but in reality, they know nothing at all. The fact that there have been no student deaths in school from the middle of 1992 until 2017, is a credit to the work of School Safety Agents. It’s not magic, it’s hard work. Work, which receives little acknowledgement or thanks, and which is demeaned and demonized by politicians trying to make points with wrong-minded advocacy groups. And now, they want to throw the Agents out! School Safety Agents have saved NYC schools. Students, teachers and staff have been provided with a safe, nurturing environment for many years. And what do School Safety Agents get for it from the City Council? These same essential workers are now deemed expendable. They are being abused and disrespected. The Council wants to throw them away like garbage. What about just saying thank you for all the lives that we have protected? What about praising 25 years of safety, and lives, which you can never measure or put a dollar value on?