Worried parents blast Salazar at school safety forum for Northside ISD

At a forum on school security at an elementary school Thursday night, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar spoke of a homicide over a THC vape and kids stealing guns from cars.

But Salazar said the two independent school districts where he has deployed deputies for extra security — Northside and Southwest ISDS — are not less safe than others in the San Antonio area.

And he had to refer angry questions and comments from parents worried about assaults on campuses, especially in bathrooms, to the school districts themselves.

The forum at Northside’s Bennie Cole Elementary School on the Northwest Side also featured a presentation by the Northside ISD Police Department. It drew about 100 people, including a couple dozen uniformed officers.

The sheriff ’s office patrol district that includes the school had 407 car burglaries, 173 vehicle thefts and 70 vehicle crashes in a recent 15-month period, but officials could not immediately say if that was higher than previous similar periods, or how many of them involved juveniles.

It’s “a lot,” said Chief Deputy Raul Garza, who is in charge of the school safety task force that has increased law enforcement readiness to respond to a campus by setting up a mobile substation.

The mobile substation is really a trailer, Salazar said, adding, “I wish I could say it was sexier than what it is.”

He said it would help combat crime in the entire community, not just schools. One reason it was set up, Salazar said, was that deputies were responding more frequently to calls in the area, one of which was the Brennan High School student who was killed recently in his neighborhood in a dispute over an electronic vaporizer containing THC.

He said the partnership with the two school districts was mutually beneficial, with deputies closer to schools in case they are needed to help school district police.

In an interview after the presentation, Salazar said the task force will gather data that he can take to the Bexar County Commissioners Court to seek funding to expand the program to other school districts.

Among the public comments at the forum was emotional testimony from Summer Garcia, who said she was a Northside ISD parent and former teacher who now works at another district.

“I left Northside because I didn’t feel safe as an elementary school teacher,” she said.