In Compton, there is a concern for the amount of campus police at our schools. This petition focuses on the limit of police on school grounds. Campus police on school campuses provide a stepping stool for institutionalizing students. This can trigger stress, anxiety, and PTSD for students who have/witnessed/or experienced trauma with the police. Living in Compton, many students have been exposed to racial profiling and police brutality. We want to ensure that our schools are a safe place for students to learn. We demand that police stay off campus and we find alternative ways to address security as well as safety on campus. We ask that they remain in close proximity in cases of emergency, but for the sake of student wellness, remain off campus. We the Students of Compton see the concerns about removing campus police, but we are pleading you stand with us. Understand that we don’t want to be put in an unsafe situation as much as you don’t want us in one. However student fights and trashcans on fires are situations that may not need armed police on campus. We do not think a bullet is going to set out a fire. Furthermore, the funding we put into the CUSD police can be moved to help us get more resources we need to actually learn. The chief of CUSD police gets paid as much as an Administrator and yet we don’t even have available fire extinguishers in each classroom, enough teachers, counselors and security on campus. We understand you are afraid of parents going up to schools when a fight occurs which we’ve seen happen. We want schools safety, but having armed police on campus is not the answer. We propose better allocating money spent on getting enough campus security on campus and to train our already established security guards to receive better training on how to de-escalate those types of situations. We ask money be allocated to more student services to lower rates of students smoking/drinking. Why do we need students to be arrested and have their lives messed with simply because they made a mistake instead have security escort them to the office and call parents as well as send them to school counseling. We the Students of Compton are asking for a safer environment for us to learn in. In a world where racial discrimination is already very prevalent we don’t want to feel that same way in an environment where our purpose should not be worrying about which shooter to look out for. For many of us interactions with school police are an introduction to the criminal justice system or what many call the school to prison pipeline. The only message that having campus police sends to our students is "we don’t see you as scholars who will shape our future we see you as criminals who deserve to be patrolled."