Woodland Hills schools may require body cameras for guards

The Woodland Hills School District could soon enact a policy that would require school resource officers and security guards to wear body cameras while inside district schools.

The district is in the early stages of creating such a policy and still needs to secure funding and collect input from the municipal police departments that contract the officers to work in the schools, superintendent Alan Johnson said Friday.

“We think it would provide for greater accountability for everyone involved, including the SRO, staff and students, as well,” Mr. Johnson said.

The Woodland Hills district made national news this week after two surveillance video clips were released showing school resource officer Steve Shaulis, an officer with the Churchill Police Department, engaging in physical confrontations with students at the high school.

Todd Hollis, who represented an unidentified student earlier this year after the student recorded Woodland Hills High School principal Kevin Murray threatening to “knock his … teeth” down his throat, released the surveillance video

Tuesday.

The first clip shows Officer Shaulis and another student, Que’Chawn Wade, 14, get into an altercation in an office that concluded when the officer punched out the student’s front tooth. The student had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital, where his tooth was sewn back into place. Que’Chawn was charged with resisting arrest, assault and making terroristic threats in the April incident and his case is still pending in juvenile court, Mr. Hollis said.

A second video clip shows a March 2015 incident involving a former Woodland Hills student being grabbed by Officer Shaulis and thrown to the ground. In the video, Mr. Murray is seen helping to hold the boy down while Officer Shaulis shocked him with a Taser. Mr. Hollis said that student was acquitted of resisting arrest but received probation on a disorderly conduct charge.

Attorney Tim O’Brien is representing a 15-year-old girl who alleges similar altercations and “fabricated” criminal charges in two incidents at the school in 2015 and late 2016.

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s office has been investigating whether Officer Shaulis used excessive force in the April incident. The results of that investigation will be shared with the FBI.

Mr. Johnson said he and other district administrators began discussing a body camera policy in April after it was suggested by Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. The district attorney’s office has been working with the school district on crafting the policy and securing the funds to purchase the cameras for the district’s four school resource officers, he said.

Mr. Johnson said crafting such a policy is challenging, because he is not aware of any other school district that has one. Usually, administrators could study other districts’ policies and tailor one to suit Woodland Hills.

“In this case, we’re writing it from scratch,” he said.

What’s missing in the videos that were released this week was context, although Mr. Johnson said he wasn’t making an excuse for what was recorded.

“Obviously, it’s an officer acountability issue, primarily,” he said. “But as often as [a body camera] can be used to hold an officer accountable, it can be used to exonerate an officer, too.”

School board President Tara Reis said the policy would be a “win-win” for everyone — students, faculty and the officers.

“It’s adding another level of confirmation and information when something happens,” she said. “Obviously, when you have a difficult situation or an episode in one of your schools ... a lot of times you’re going to end up with ‘he said, she said.’ This will completely negate any dispute, any contradiction by the people who are involved.”