Rhode Island Representative William O'Brien says this week's school shooting in Georgia shows the need to arm campus police at the state's public colleges.
He says if that kind of a situation were to happen on one of the state campuses the students, staff and visitors would be defenseless while waiting for police to arrive.
“This latest heinous attack on another school shows that we are unfortunately living in a time when armed security is becoming more necessary to protect the safety and wellbeing of our students. If a situation like this or worse were to happen on the campuses of RIC or CCRI, our students, staff and visitors would be defenseless while waiting for the police to arrive. How many more warning signs do we need before we take safety seriously at RIC and CCRI, whose security staff is only armed with handcuffs and pepper spray? Does tragedy need to strike before responsible campus safety action is taken? The administrations of both these institutions need to face the reality that there are dangerous people who wish to do harm on soft targets such as these schools and the only way to ensure safety is by properly arming their campus police with firearms and tasers. We need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst and right now, we are not prepared,” said Representative O’Brien (D-Dist. 54, North Providence).
The University of Rhode Island is currently the only public institute of higher education in the state that has armed campus police.
Brown University in Providence is a private institution with armed campus police.
(Photo: Rhode Island General Assembly)