All 86 Richland County school resource officers have been trained on a new disability policy – introduced this school year – that allows them to learn better ways of handling incidents involving disabled students.
Training includes knowing how to recognize students with emotional, physical or intellectual impairments + how to treat accordingly (i.e. not just putting them in handcuffs). The training also includes guidelines on how to determine if a student could potentially cause a threat to themselves or the school.
The program was designed to help officers get out of the “cop mentality” and be more in-line with “21st century policing.”
