Fresno Unified Trustee Terry Slatic called his fellow School Board trustees part of the “radical fringe” in the Fresno community that opposes having uniformed, armed officers on secondary school campuses during a national TV network interview.
Slatic’s comments came during an early Tuesday morning interview on “Fox & Friends First” about a recent Fresno Unified report that students surveyed in focus groups “overwhelmingly” want police officers to remain on campus to provide safety and security.
Fresno Unified trustees are considering whether to renew a contract with the Fresno Police Department to employ police officers as campus resource officers at district high schools.
The contract with Fresno Police last year to employ officers as neighborhood school resource officers at middle schools expired last year.
‘Fox & Friends First’ Interview
Slatic, who represents the Bullard High area, said during the three-minute interview that the need for school security with armed officers has become more urgent in the wake of tragedies such as the mass shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and Parkland High School in Florida.
During School Board discussions last year over renewing the police contract, Slatic said in the televised interview, “My fellow trustees who are fundamentally leftists wanted to either have no police or to have police in civilian clothes with no weapons, no badges, etc.”
Saturday’s rally at City Hall over the reopening of schools, which attracted about 75 people but which Slatic called “massive,” also touched on the issue of school safety, he said.
“Now, we’ve gotten a level of critical mass, if you will, where the public has clearly stated that if they don’t get the safety, the police, etc., then there’s going to be an awful lot of changes in the next election cycle,” Slatic said on the show.
Several speakers at Saturday’s rally identified the School Board members who will be up for reelection in 2022.
National, Not Local
On Monday, Slatic told GV Wire℠ said he belatedly realized that the phone call from a television producer Monday morning about the Tuesday interview was for a national broadcast. “For the first five minutes of the interview, I thought she was the local girl,” he said.
Nancy Price is a multimedia journalist for GV Wire. A longtime reporter and editor who has worked for newspapers in California, Florida, Alaska, Illinois and Kansas, Nancy joined GV Wire in July 2019. She previously worked as an assistant metro editor for 13 years at The Fresno Bee. Nancy earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her hobbies include singing with the Fresno Master Chorale and volunteering with Fresno Filmworks. You can reach Nancy at 559-492-4087 or Send an Email
