OPINION | Seattle Student Safety Starts With Trust, Not More Police in Schools

In early June 2024, Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot dead in the Garfield High School parking lot during lunchtime after breaking up a fight. Over a year later, the investigation remains open and no one has been held accountable. Amarr's family is now suing Seattle Public Schools (SPS) for failing to protect their child.

This October, the school board voted down a proposed pilot to place a Seattle police officer inside Garfield. The proposed pilot program would have reversed a moratorium on police in schools that was passed by the school board in 2020. Before the moratorium, Garfield was one of five SPS schools with a School Emphasis Officer (SEO) on site, and the only high school with an officer.

After launching in 2009, the district soon expanded the program to other schools. As many as 11 schools – primarily in the South End and the Central District – had armed and uniformed school resource officers or SEOs. Seattle police were removed from schools in 2020 after districtwide student protests in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. They did not have the trust of the students.

Instead of returning to placing armed police officers inside of schools, specialized SPD officers trained in community policing should be a presence in the neighborhoods around schools. These community officers should complement realistic, workable programs within and adjacent to schools that will ensure student and staff safety and security. Safety efforts should also include partnerships with organizations that are already working to bring peace to the streets, such as Community Passageways. All people and organizations working to keep our students safe need to be acting in coordination.

Real security is based on trust. When students trust the people acting to keep them safe, they will voluntarily help to neutralize dangerous situations before they become critical or deadly by alerting the proper authorities. Students are the first line of information.

Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes inherited this case; he can begin to gain community trust by solving this murder with the help of community input. Without closure, the Garfield community cannot heal. We need effective strategies and programs to prevent the violence in our city that threatens our students at school and in our neighborhoods.

Amarr's father, Arron Murphy-Paine, has continued to pursue justice and a safer community at Garfield. He started the Amarr's Heart Foundation as a way to carry on his son's peacemaking legacy. It can be a model to replicate around our city. Students want a common, comfortable space where they can interact peacefully and in unity. More than anything, they want to see their administration hire people who can facilitate this with conflict resolution, peer interactions, and caring adults.

The recent mayoral election results in Seattle and New York are a representation of the shifting consciousness, especially among youth, which is filtering throughout the general community. Each of our lives, like Amarr's, sends out ripples through our thoughts and actions that impact other people and our collective future. In his death, he demonstrated the principle of looking out for the welfare of others. One of his former teachers at Garfield has an empty desk, Amarr's seat, to remind students of his legacy. Our most important job is to nurture youth to become better human beings; none are expendable.

The tip line for information about the murder of Amarr Murphy-Paine is (206) 233-5000.

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Michael Dixon was a nerdy scholar-athlete who worked as a legislative intern in Olympia and with the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Black Student Union at Garfield and the University of Washington. Recently, he retired as a security specialist from Seattle Public Schools. He's currently a happily married father and grandpa.

Mark Epstein is a retired, though still subbing, longtime Rainier Beach social studies teacher. He is a longtime union activist, loving life as a husband, father, grandfather, and community member.