Westbrook police and school officials are inviting the public to a forum, where the topic is community safety.
The recent spate of gun violence, both nationally and abroad, has prompted Westbrook police and school officials to focus on safety precautions in the community.
A public forum on the issue, hosted by Superintendent of Schools Marc Gousse and Westbrook Police Chief Janine Roberts, will take place Thursday, Jan. 7, at 6:30 p.m. at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there who have questions,” Gousse said this week, discussing the forum.
He said the purpose of the meeting is to inform residents of the safety precautions that the school department and the city already have in place in case of an emergency situation, and to ask residents for their help by being alert and aware.
“The best deterrent we have is making sure we’re aware of our surroundings, and if something doesn’t look right, report it,” he said.
However, both he and Roberts said they want the community to be careful of racial profiling, especially given the diversity of the school district.
Proactive measures and discussions have become a theme under Roberts’ tenure in Westbrook so far. Just last week, she announced a community-driven heroin abuse initiative that seeks to combat the problem by focusing on education, awareness and intervention efforts. This past summer, the police department also hired Megan Perry as a community policing coordinator. Based on Brown Street, she is focusing on providing resources to residents that need them.
The safety forum is another way to engage the community in a proactive way, Roberts said Monday. She said that in addition to “ongoing training” between the police department and schools and businesses, she’s asking the public to be on alert.
“It’s not about profiling, it’s about behavior,” she said.
The forum will also ask residents and parents to be aware of potential mental health issues, which can lead to violence – a problem that a community such as Westbrook is more likely to face than a potential terrorist plot.
Gousse said the more the community works together, the easier it will be for someone with mental-health issues to receive help. He said in most cases, school shootings have been perpetrated by students who were alienated and disenfranchised.
Roberts said the forum might also provide city and school officials with a better idea of what the community is thinking.
“We may walk out with suggestions of something we can do better, or something different that we haven’t been doing,” she said.
Mayor Colleen Hilton, who spoke briefly about the recent terrorist activity in the country during her inauguration speech earlier this month, said Tuesday that engaging the public on safety is an “important endeavor.”
“We all need to be mindful of the events which are happening across our country,” she said in an email Tuesday. “The forum on Jan. 7 is one way we can share with our public the many efforts we are undertaking to ensure our community is as safe as it can be.”
Leading up to the forum, Roberts said she would also like to include large Westbrook businesses such as Idexx Laboratories and Sappi Fine Paper in the discussion. Both businesses have hundreds of employees in concentrated areas, with their own security measures.
On Tuesday, the school department was also running a lockdown drill at the high school. However, Gousse said, the forum is not just focusing on the school district. Both Roberts and Fire Chief Andrew Turcotte will also be discussing the police and fire departments, as well as the security of other popular locations, such as the Westbrook Community Center and Walker Memorial Library.
“This isn’t just a forum on school safety,” Gousse said. “This is an entire community.”
Because of the troubling increase in school shootings across the country, school departments have increasingly used higher security measures, including locked doors while school is in session, and ID badges for employees and all visitors. Gousse said these measures, which Westbrook uses, signal a “shift in our society.”
“The world is changing,” he said.
Some school districts nationwide have even taken part in “active shooter” trainings, but, due to their frightening nature, most of these trainings take place during school vacations, when police can use an empty school building and not involve students.
Gousse said there will most likely be a “very large” exercise at the high school in the spring – a practice run for evacuating the entire school. He said exercises like these could prevent chaos in the event of a real situation.
“Why would we ever want to wait for something to happen?” Gousse said.
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