ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Legislature is on a fast track to pass a new bill that sets up a model policy for how school resource officers operate in schools, and clarifies those SROs can use prone restraints when needed to bring a student under control.
Rep. Cedrick Frazier's bill has been dubbed "the SRO fix bill" because it's an effort to assuage concerns of law enforcement agencies that officers could potentially be held criminally liable for applying their normal reasonable force standards inside schools.
Education bills passed in 2023 added a ban on prone restraints for school employees and agents, spelling out that the ban applies to school resources officers — licensed police or sheriff's deputies assigned to work inside school buildings under contracts with school districts.
Rep. Frazier's bill would no longer classify SROs as school agents, effectively allowing them use prone holds if they deem it's necessary.
That has drawn opposition from several groups, including the Solutions Not Suspensions Coalition.
"We believe safe schools are a condition for academic excellence. Safe schools are places where young people are protected from all manners of harm," former Rep. Carlos Mariani Rosa, who now works with the Minnesota Education Equity Partnership, told reporters Tuesday.
He took part in a Capitol news conference that highlighted voices of students who are opposed to the change. They assert that BIPOC children are disproportionately affected by holds such as prone restraints.
"Kids don’t want to be restrained in school. Kids want to feel safe," Simon, who identified himself as an autistic sixth grader, told reporters. "Using prone restraint never, ever helps a kid calm down. It just makes things worse."
The Capitol Press also heard from a high school student named Sydney, who represents the Legal Rights Center Youth Network.
"If Minnesota prisons are not able to use prone restraints, what makes them appropriate for children in a school setting?" Sydney remarked. "As someone with an SRO in my own high school, this puts fear in my heart that my peers could fall victim to this lethal and unnecessary restraint."
When that law became effective in August, dozens of law enforcement agencies pulled their SROs from schools and joined Republican lawmakers in calling for a special session to remedy the situation immediately. They claimed the idea had not been vetted properly with the committees that deal with policing issues.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued an opinion that the new law wouldn't prevent officers from using those restraints to prevent imminent bodily harm.
Some departments returned their officers to schools, while others placed officers outside the buildings but made them available for rapid responses to 911 calls. That was based on a reading of the law that officers could use whatever force they deemed as reasonable as long as they were summoned to the school.
Frazier, a Crystal Democrat, has tried to strike a balance that assures police agencies they can return their SROs to schools while recognizing that children can be traumatized by being placed in prone restraints or witnessing it happen to other children.
Imran Ali, of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, testified in committee that Frazier's legislation would provide law enforcement with the assurances they need to place officers back inside schools. The MPPOA took the lead last summer in sounding the alarm about the new laws, and how they would place officers in jeopardy of criminal prosecution.
Under Frazier's bill, teachers and other school employees would still be barred from those holds, described in the bill as "any form of physical holding that restricts or impairs a pupil's ability to breathe; restricts or impairs a pupil's ability to communicate distress; places pressure or weight on a pupil's head, throat, neck, chest, lungs, sternum, diaphragm, back, or abdomen; or results in straddling a pupil's torso."
The bill also establishes a model policy for SROs, in an effort to set statewide training standards and expectations for those officers. Frazier's bill would leave it to the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, or POST Board, to consult with stakeholders to create the final wording of that model policy.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid's and its Minnesota Disability Law Center oppose removing the ban on prone restraints.
The nonprofit's statement read, in part, "We have represented children who have been hurt in holds. Our position is that face-down, breath-impacting holds on children are dangerous. These holds are high-risk, even for the most experienced and most highly trained law enforcement officers."
Legal Aid's Jessica Webster testified in committee that the legislature should be able to add clarifying language that encapsulates the Attorney General's opinion without removing the ban on prone restraints for officers.
Matt Shaver of Ed Allies agreed it shouldn't be an either-or proposition.
"We don’t have to exempt SRO folks from the prone restraint ban to get the model policy. We could pass the model policy."
Republicans thus far have voted against Frazier's bill in committee, in part because of the POST Board's involvement.
"Keep in mind, there are 17 members on the POST Board, every one of them is appointed by the governor," Rep. Paul Novotny, an Elk River Republican who is a retired law enforcement officer, argued on the House Floor this week.
Republican Rep. Jeff Witte of Lakeville said there's no need for a statewide model policy, asserting those details can be worked out in contract negotiations between law enforcement agencies and school districts. His attempt to substitute his version of an SRO fix failed in the Education Policy Committee Monday night.
It has remained a politically charged issue at the Capitol. GOP defenders of SROs in schools say school employees feel they've been maligned by all the talk of choke holds and prone restraints.
"I’ve heard over and over and over that if you want school resource officers in schools you must be for choking kids," Rep. Ben Bakeberg, a Jordan Republican who is a teacher and principal, told colleagues during a floor debate.
"At a very basic level that’s insulting. There are a number of educators on both sides of the aisle that choose to go into education because we want to love and serve kids."