POLICE BEEF UP PRESENCE AT SCHOOLS

Resource Officers, Drug Dogs Work To Keep Students Safe

Local law enforcement is focused on keeping Gainesville and Hall
County schools safe so students can concentrate on their studies.

Traditionally, school resource officers are present only in middle
and high schools. But for the past two years, Gainesville City
Schools also has had an officer floating between its five elementary
schools.

"Not too many have taken it down to the elementary school level,"
said Gainesville Police Chief Frank Hooper.

The officers at all schools are good role models for children, Hooper
said. Though their purpose is protection and crime prevention, the
officers are a friendly face children and teens can trust.

"We want them to be involved with the kids and the administration,"
Hooper said.

Hall County students are being asked to trust officers by turning in
peers who are doing drugs in school.

Posters this year will advertise a reward for information leading to
a conviction. The reward is $100 from the sheriff and $100 from the
school board.

Judge Cliff Jolliff, who oversees Juvenile Court for the Northeastern
Judicial Circuit that includes Dawson and Hall counties, compiled
statistics for crimes in schools from Aug. 1, 2005, to May 31, 2006.

He listed for schools in Hall County one charge of battery on a
teacher, one for distributing controlled substances on school
property and four for possession of a controlled substance on school
property

He also listed 29 charges for possession of weapon on school property
and 37 juvenile marijuana possession cases, some of which may have
occurred at school.

"It's not a huge amount of drug cases that come to court," Jolliff
said.

"That doesn't mean that the school isn't detecting drugs at school,"
he said. "They don't always file the charges, or at least that is our
perception with that few cases filed in the last school year."

This school year, students will have their own pair of "canine
officers" watching over them. The dogs are trained to sniff out drugs
in pockets, lockers and cars.

Hall County Sheriff's Office dogs have searched schools for drugs in
the past, but these canines are on call just for students in Hall
County and Gainesville schools.

"The dogs will be available in a moment's notice to do a search in
the schools they're housed at, or travel to any Gainesville school if
the school resource officer requests them," Strickland said.

Two of Hall's 13 school resource officers are trained to handle the
dogs, which were paid for through a donation from Turbo Logistics.
The dogs are stationed at East Hall and North Hall high schools.

"The locations of the drug dogs were not decided upon because of
problems," Strickland said.

He said officers at those schools happened to volunteer for the
extensive training.