Middletown Hires 11 Armed Officers To Patrol Schools, 5 More Coming (2024)

Schools

Middletown plans to have one officer in all 16 schools in the district, at all hours school is in session. They will be armed at all times.

Posted Tue, Aug 16, 2022 at 2:08 pm ET|Updated Wed, Aug 17, 2022 at 9:41 am ET

Five more officers are in the process of being hired; they have not officially been hired yet.

"We want to start the school year with 16; one for every school," said Middletown school board vice president Jacqueline Tobacco.

In total, there will be up to 25 Class-3 special law enforcement officers hired.

The 11 officers sworn in Monday night will begin training this month and be ready for the first day of school on Sept. 6.

Middletown aims to have one of these in all 16 schools in the district; they will be there all hours school is in session. They will all carry guns at all times.

This was a direct response by the Middletown school district and Township to the Uvalde, Texas school shooting on May 24, where 19 children and two teachers at Ross Elementary School were killed by a lone gunman.

Also, longtime Middletown residents Raymond and Elsie Catena made a $23,500 donation that will fund 20 bulletproof vests for the officers.

“We sincerely thank the Catena family for their generous donation and commitment to public safety,” said Middletown Police Chief R. Chief Weber.

It was a unanimous vote to hire the armed officers; no Middletown school board members voted against hiring them.

The officers were sworn into service by the Township immediately after the BOE voted to hire them. The hiring of these officers is so significant that even Middletown's Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ4) attended their swearing-in last night.

The Class-3 officers are mostly retired police officers; some used to be former State troopers or from the Middletown police department or other departments in the area.

Middletown Township and the school district made the decision to hire the special law enforcement officers in a shared services agreement, but it is the Middletown school district that is solely paying the cost of their hiring. It is projected to cost the district $1.4 million the first year (2022-23) and $1.3 million the second year (23-23).

The Class-3 officers will be paid $35 an hour, which is much less than the rate for off-duty police. Immediately after Uvalde, Middletown placed armed, off-duty police officers in all schools at a rate of $50 per hour.

Middletown does not have school resource officers, so that's why Middletown decided to hire the Class-3 officers instead. But some of these of these new hires will be trained as SROs.

Tobacco said it was Middletown Mayor Tony Perry who actually spearheaded the movement to get armed officers in schools.

"The mayor called Frank (BOE president Frank Capone) immediately after Uvalde and we all pulled together an emergency meeting — Frank, me, Perry, superintendent Mary Ellen Walker and Police Chief Weber," said Tobacco.

Two years ago, Perry tried to get gun-carrying Class-3 police officers in Middletown schools, but members of the school board at the time were uncomfortable with having armed officers in schools.

"The feedback I got was that the BOE was not in favor of it because they did not want armed officers in the schools," said Perry. "I tried to achieve this a few years back and they shot it down; they were adamant they did not want them armed. The morning after Uvalde, I called Frank and was like, we need to get this done. I said we need an emergency shared services meeting. That was at 9 a.m. By 1 p.m. that same day we all got in a room and mapped it out."