On Tuesday, Lincoln Public Schools along with the Lincoln Police Department talked about a possible partnership to add more school resource officers in the schools.
Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said they were looking as an agency at some common sense solutions that didn't cost of lot of money to be able to interject themselves into the school systems.
The solution could be to create a joint public agency, a semi-governmental group, and levy a 1-cent tax to pay for an additional 6 school resource officers and one threat assessment officer in a coordinating role for the city's 12 public middle schools.
To also help build the relationship between the students and police, a half-dozen Lincoln police officers ate lunch with students at Park Middle School on Tuesday.
"We're immersing ourselves and making it so they know that we're human. They know who we are, they know about us," said Bliemeister.
The agreement would give police access to LPS camera feeds when it is “necessary to protect the health or safety of students or others.” That means in the event of a crisis at one of the LPS high schools, Lincoln police could use a live feed from cameras in the schools.
"It's going to make a difference if we hear and alarm in the middle of the night when school isn't in session and no kids are present. We should be able to access those cameras and hopefully provide some immediate input to the responding officers," said Bliemeister.
The agreement would also add six more school resource officers and one additional security employee.
