Hope Mills Police Chief Slams Cumberland County Over ‘Surprise’ Removal of SRO

BY LEXI SOLOMON | CityView Team

In a strongly worded memorandum to Hope Mills City Manager Chancer McLaughlin, Hope Mills Police Chief Stephen Dollinger said last week that Cumberland County Sheriff Ennis Wright’s decision to remove security guards and school crossing guards from many public schools surprised almost everyone involved.

“I have spoken with Chief Braden of the Fayetteville Police Department and interim Chief of the Spring Lake Police Department Errol Jarman, known as Captain Deaver,” Dollinger wrote in the May 22 memo. “Both were surprised at the abrupt end of the long-standing practice of the CCSO providing these services and transferring this responsibility to local cities.”

In fact, Wright’s own staff were surprised by the decision, Dollinger later said in the letter.

“From the feedback I received from a source in the sheriff’s office, their staff was unaware of this and was as surprised as we were,” Dollinger wrote.

A May 24 email from McLaughlin to councilors, the mayor and Dollinger said Commissioner Glenn Adams, chairman of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, was also unaware of the impending change.

Wright informed local police chiefs on May 21 of his decision to only send deputies to schools in unincorporated areas of Cumberland County. CityView previously reportedThe change will come into force on 1 July, the day after $3.2 million school board contract with Wright for SROs. Wright’s last-minute notice may have been a breach of the contract, which requires each party to notify the other of its decision to renew or terminate the agreement by April 15 of each year.

Elected officials expressed concerns that the change will place a greater burden on communities that have had little time to prepare. The decision creates 18 vacancies for school police officers and 31 vacancies for school crossing guards in at least 50 schools in Fayetteville, seven schools in Hope Mills and three schools in Spring Lake, according to a presentation planned It will be given at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at a meeting of the School Board’s Auxiliary Services Committee in the Central Services Building.

SROs are employees of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, which has contracted with the school board each year for more than two decades to assign its deputies to specific schools to perform a variety of duties, including serving as school crossing guards and assisting with public relations as school liaison officers.

Each elementary school will be assigned a part-time school resource officer who will rotate between three or four schools, while each middle and high school will have a full-time resource officer, Dollinger’s letter said.

Why did this happen?

Dollinger said in his memo that the decision was made due to personnel issues at the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, but did not say who provided the information. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office has not yet responded to multiple requests for comment from CityView.

“While I understand that the Sheriff must make this difficult decision, the responsibility for responding to emergency calls, ensuring safety and allowing students to cross safely inevitably falls on our department,” Dollinger wrote, adding that the change would place an “extreme burden” on Hope Mills Police.

In his letter to the city manager, Dollinger identified the following issues related to the SRO and the removal of the school crossing guard:

• Security concerns
• Security at after-school events such as football games – School police officers and other support staff currently provide security and are paid between $40 and $45 per hour by the school system
• Not enough Hope Mills Police Department officers to serve as school security or provide security at extracurricular events
• The costs of recruiting and equipping additional officers to work as school crossing guards and school crossing guards.
• The time needed to hire and train additional officers for these tasks – Dollinger said the turnaround time for the officers is five to seven weeks, so hiring would have to begin immediately
• The requirement of 120 to 400 hours of training for certification as a School Resource Officer
• The need for an additional police supervisor to oversee school security forces and operational planning.
• Potential liability on the part of the city if it decides not to hire security guards for the school and violence or a traffic accident occurs at a school
• The additional staffing required to handle additional calls to schools, as school liaison officers are currently handling all calls and incidents that occur there

Ultimately, Dollinger said, he does not recommend that the city of Hope Mills provide security guards or crossing guards to the schools.

“Once you take on that responsibility, it’s difficult to stop the practice later,” he wrote. “God forbid, (if) the city assigns SROs to schools and later decides to remove them and an active violence situation occurs, there will be outrage and finger-pointing at the city for removing them, not to mention lawsuits.”

Dollinger suspected that the sheriff’s office was making the change to shift liability to individual municipalities. He added that those plans included cutting off support from local agencies. Wright’s office currently provides crime scene technicians to the Hope Mills and Spring Lake police departments.

What can Hope Mills do?

To address his concerns, Dollinger recommended to the city:

• Hire two additional officers to train them as crime scene technicians
• Increase in Hope Mills Police Department staffing from 45 to 54 officers
• Hire an additional four officers to ensure that each patrol unit is assigned a sergeant and six officers
• Eliminating the animal control officer position could save the department $100,000. Animal Control already provides animal control for free, and the officer averages one call per shift, Dollinger said.

“I do not make these recommendations lightly,” he wrote. “I fully understand the city’s financial constraints.”

According to Dollinger’s letter, an assistant county director indicated that Cumberland County could hire the city’s animal control officer for its animal control department to keep him employed.

In addition to his recommendations, Dollinger said the city could hire people who currently work as school crossing guards or school police officers for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

“We may explore either option in due course, depending on how we choose to address the increased responsibility imposed on us by the CCSO no longer providing these services to schools within the city limits,” he wrote.

Regardless of the city’s decision, Dollinger emphasized in his letter the challenges the transition will pose for the municipalities.

“I know that transferring these responsibilities will be a burden on all local police agencies in Cumberland County, especially given the short-term nature of the CCSO,” he said.

Local police chiefs are scheduled to meet with Wright on June 6 at 2:30 p.m. In addition, the Hope Mills Board of Commissioners will hold a special meeting on the issue at 6 p.m. Thursday at City Hall.

Reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at [email protected] or 910-423-6500.

This story was made possible by donations to the CityView News Fund, a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to an informed democracy.