On Wednesday, two deans were patting down a student when he shot them both, sending one into critical care. Following this, calls came flooding in to place police officers in Denver Public Schools. One call for this came from an unlikely source – Denver school board member Tay Anderson.
In 2020, Anderson said “We want to be able to have a school system where students are greeted with school nurses, with full-time mental health supports, and not the Denver Police Department.” This was just one month after he refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
However, according to Mayor Michael Hancock’s Chief of Staff Alan Salazar, “He called Chief Thomas this morning and told the chief that he was going to go to the board with a proposal to put two officers in up to 80 schools.” This would mean Anderson would place 160 Denver officers in 80 DPS schools.
When hearing about this demand of putting 160 officers in schools, Salazar said he “had to ask Chief Thomas about it twice.”
When asked about Anderson’s aggressive statements and his flip-flopped statements, Anderson refused to comment, “I cannot comment at this time, the board is in executive session.”
At a Thursday press conference announcing a new Denver school board initiative to allow school resource officers back into classrooms, flip-flopping Anderson refused to take questions and had a staff member run interference for him with Denver media.