Turning the Corner on Gang Violence

Last spring gang violence began peaking in the Shawnee Mission School District. Fights were occurring by the dozens each week, all leading up to the shooting of SM North sophomore Ryder Spillman by East sophomore Stephen Reed. These two were in the middle of an ongoing feud between different gangs from the two schools.

The conflict between these two schools has forced the SMSD as a whole to reevaluate how they deal with gang violence. In the last year there have been several changes made by the East administration that are intended to improve safety. According to East Principal Karl Krawitz, there isn’t always a way to prevent gang violence from happening, but the administration at East is doing their best to minimize its possibility.

“Well, as an administrator you never know for sure what is coming, because there is no way to check with students just based on suspicion,” Dr. Krawitz said. “But I will tell you that no one had contacted us because they felt unsafe because if they had I promise you action would have taken place.”

The East administration has put several new rules into effect this school year.  This came as a result of the gang problems East had in the 2010-2011 school year that culminated with the shooting of Spillman.

According to Dr. Krawitz, there have been two recorded fights so far this year, while there were 40-50 fights last year.  He believes that this spike in fighting occurred because of increased gang violence at East.

Dr. Krawitz believes this outburst in violence came partially because these students were not “home grown Shawnee Mission students.”

“If you ask me, many of the kids in our school were new and trying to make a name for themselves,”  Dr. Krawitz said.

Prairie Village Police Sergeant Byron Roberson believes that Prairie Village really has never had a serious gang violence problem.  However, he does believe that there are still things the school district along with police officers can do to improve our current system.

“Even though it hasn’t been too big of an issue we are working with the area schools to prevent not only gang related violence, but also violence in general around school,” Roberson said.

According to Roberson, the PV Police has worked with East and other schools from around the district to build an interactive mapping program for police cars.  Indian Hills Middle School’s Resource Officer Detective Seth Meyer is the officer behind the building of these maps.

“When you are in a crisis situation the only thing that you will never have enough of is information and time,” Meyer told Fox 4 News last February. “These mapping programs give the police officers just that by bringing the school into their cars before they get on site.”

With these maps when a 911 call is made from the school, a virtual 360 degree picture of the room from which that call was made will come up on the computer screen along with a map of the school.  With these maps, officers can get a better idea of how to handle every situation before arriving at the school.

“All of this is a work in progress,” Roberson said. “However we are hoping that if a time ever does present itself we can use it to keep our students safe.”

Dr. Krawitz hopes that these precautions being taken by the police will help. However, according to him, the real way to stop gang violence is to have the students and administrators do their part inside the building.

“If the entire school buys in on the idea of zero-tolerance, then we will be a safer school in every way,” Dr. Krawitz said.

To reinforce the idea of zero-tolerance, Dr. Krawitz and the other administrators have been cracking down on violations of the newly enacted rules.  One of these rules that the administration has shown zero tolerance on is the “no hats no hoods” rule.

“The ‘no hats no hoods’ policy is probably not going to save any lives; however it does give us a way to put an end to a well known symbolic meaning of these gangs,” Krawitz said.  “This policy was a non verbal intimidation saying to the school ‘We’re in charge here’ and so far it has been completely painless to remove.”

Another policy that has been put in place this last year is the ‘loitering policy’.  Yellow signs that read “NO LOITERING” can be found throughout the hallways. The intention is to limit congregation of students and gangs on school property. East Associate Principal Jeremy Higgins was one of the administrators behind the new loitering policy and spends most passing periods in the third or fourth floor main staircase areas making sure students behave themselves.

“The integration of these new policies really has not been tough at all; we have had minor problems throughout the year but for the most part it has gone very smoothly,” Higgins said.

East administrators such as Higgins have had to remind students of these policies throughout the year. However, for the most part students have followed the rules without any problems.

Senior Molly Jennings believes that the new policies have been very positive and have made the entire school safer and easier to move around in.

“The negative and violent feel that these areas had before is no longer an issue,” Jennings said.

According to Jennings these policies have not affected her or her friends however she believes they are helping keep the gang problems down at East.

“You know I’m not surprised about that,” Dr. Krawitz said.  “We knew that for the most part we would have very little backlash from students about these policies because 99 percent of the students don’t do it anyway and it wasn’t an issue for them.”

As Sergeant Roberson said, the issue of gang violence has never been a huge issue for Shawnee Mission East or Prairie Village however they both are continuing to work toward making schools safer for students.

“Having an adequate amount of ways that students actually use to report violence is key and that is something Shawnee Mission East is doing,” Roberson said.  “After that it really is up to the students to take that step and better their school for themselves.”