Evergreen High secures full-time school resource officer for added protection

By: Vicente Arenas | FOX31 Denver

EVERGREEN, Colo. (KDVR) — The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office says a full-time school resource officer will be assigned to Evergreen High School when students return to that campus after a school shooting there.

The Evergreen Parent-Teachers-Students Association had been hoping for a full-time officer.

“I understand they may not be able to prevent a tragedy, but we need to have some deterrents in place. We need to have somebody that can act who is trained to act in order to minimize any sort of event like this. That’s really what we are looking for,” Evergreen PTSA President Cindy Mazeika said.

When the shooting happened last week, there was a part-time SRO assigned to the school. But a Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesperson said that the deputy had left the school before the shooting to answer another call. The deputy had followed protocol, according to the sheriff’s office.

Mazeika says there should have been an officer in the school. FOX31 asked the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for details on how SRO policies are regulated. The department shared the intergovernmental agreement between Jeffco Public Schools and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for school resource officers.

One part of the document says, “The JCSO may, from time to time, and at its sole discretion, reassign its employees and designate one or more replacement SROs or SRO Supervisors at any time.”

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