Under current Winooski school officer, arrests dropped sharply, records show

In the past five years, and since the current Winooski school resource officer Jason Ziter started work in mid-2018, arrests by the Winooski SRO have significantly decreased.

In a records request made by the Winooski News, records showed that out of the 24 arrests reported within the past five years, few were made by the current SRO and there have been no arrests since Jan. 2019.

Records show that previous resource officers often dealt with, and cited students involved in minor thefts and fights. Of the five cases Ziter has been involved in, three were expunged, one dealt with a court-ordered truancy issue and the other was a domestic violence case.

The Winooski School Board voted in the spring to retain the school officer position by a vote of 4-1. The board heard hours of testimony from community members.

A group of current and former students called Winooski Students for Anti-Racism called on the board last summer to remove the position, among a list of yet-unmet demands created by Winooski School District math teacher Luke Dorfman.

In an interview with Ziter, he said that the decrease in arrests has resulted from both a change in the school’s environment and his goal of community building.

“I think things were different in Winooski when the former SRO started, as far as you know what was going on in the atmosphere of the school,” said Ziter. “My approach is that I don’t do anything with school discipline. My role as an SRO and my goals are about building relationships between the police department, the students, the parents, and the school staff.”

Ziter says that he gauges each situation he is confronted with on a case by case basis, and just because a law may have technically been broken, charging a student with a crime is not always necessary.

“When somebody is causing a disturbance in a classroom by law it’s disorderly conduct, but there’s more to it than just that,” Ziter said.

“There’s also a big difference between a 24 year old stealing headphones from a 20 year old versus a 14 year old stealing headphones from a 13 year old. In that situation we figure out with the school administration whether that child would need to be charged with a crime or if it can be used as a learning experience,” said Ziter.

The decision to charge students with a crime ultimately depends upon the discretion of whoever the primary SRO is, however, Ziter hopes that the type of discretion he uses will be continued by future SROs through collaborative training.

“There will be field training where the new SRO will be teamed up with the current SRO and it will explain how the system works,” Ziter said. “The administration and I have also started talking about how a new SRO would be selected and interviewed.”

Ziter also says that one of his main goals as the SRO isn’t just to instill the techniques and mindset used in Winooski Schools to future SRO’s, but across Vermont and nationwide as well,

“That’s one of my goals is to take this type of atmosphere, this type of community relationship, and then bring it out,you know, it’s about creating a learning environment,” Ziter said.

Regardless of the amount of arrests being made by the current SRO, there is still a sense of discomfort among Winooski Students. There have been requests made by students of Winooski schools to remove the SRO and multiple students have expressed discomfort with the SRO in school board hearings.

There are also incidents within the records that show a lack of comfort with an officer among students. In one report from 2017, the presence of the officer made the student more angry, especially once the officer threatened to arrest the student.

In another report that took place in 2017, one student also experienced negative outcomes after interacting with the school officer when the student had a self-described mental health crisis after going through the court process and dealing with language barrier issues.

Winooski students have also cited the national discussion around police and personal experience as to why they have a general discomfort around police.

In response, Ziter says that he believes students who feel uncomfortable around him haven’t gotten to know him well enough,

“The biggest thing is don’t judge me based on an experience you’ve seen on TV. You can’t judge every book by it’s cover and that comes person to person,” Ziter said. “Is there going to be a lack of trust because of someone’s personal feelings? Yes, but I hope we can change that.”