In response to gun violence, some push for police officers at Edmonds School District

Published 12:30 pm Thursday, July 9, 2026

EVERETT — Some community members are asking the Edmonds School District Board of Directors to reinstate school resource officers following a series of shootings involving youth in Lynnwood.

Since 2022, Lynnwood has seen 14 shootings with 18 teenage victims resulting in five fatalities, Lynnwood Mayor George Hurst said in a June 26 statement. He said gang activity has been the “driving force” for most of the shootings.

Hurst’s statement followed a June 12 shooting outside of a Lynnwood shopping center that injured a 17-year-old.

The effort to bring school resource officers back to the Edmonds School District is being led by the ACCESS Project, a Lynnwood-based nonprofit providing mentorship to south Snohomish County youth.

“We cannot continue to do nothing and simply hope the violence will stop,” said Wally Webster, founder of the ACCESS Project, during public comment at a school board meeting Tuesday. “We must act with urgency and compassion and common sense.”

In 2020, the Edmonds school board unanimously voted to end the school resource officer program across the district following the murder of George Floyd and nationwide outcry over police brutality.

“It is unacceptable that students are hurting and feel unsafe in our schools,” then school board president Deborah Kilgore said at the time. “We are determined to review our current school safety plans and will make the systemic changes necessary to ensure the safety and wellness of all students.”

After ending the school resource officer program, the district started a liaison officer program, which appoints patrol officers as points of contact for high schools instead of stationing officers on campus.

The district also has counselors, psychologists and family resource advocates that provide support to students as preventative measures, according to the district website.

At a school board meeting Tuesday, several students, parents and community members asked the board to consider reinstating the school resource officer program.

“If we had a school resource officer program that was there for students in open and positive ways, we can stop violence before it happens,” said Sage Persell, a Lynnwood High School student and a peer mediator with the ACCESS Project.

Parents of youth gun violence victims spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. Tabatha Johnson’s daughter, Jayda Woods-Johnson, was killed in a shooting at Alderwood Mall in 2024 at the age of 13.

“If having officers in schools or places where kids gather can prevent one family from going through what my family has gone through, then I believe it’s worth considering,” Johnson said.

Bridgett Linville’s 15-year-old son was killed in a drive-by shooting at Spruce Park in Lynnwood in 2022.

“If there was an SRO in the school, he could have helped identify that my son should not have been around such poor influences, and the kids that were under the poor influences possibly could have had a chance at straightening their life up also,” Linville said.

Arsema Esayas, an incoming junior at Mountlake Terrace High School, said students should be involved in reimagining the school resource officer program if the school board decides to reinstate it.

“Student safety should be the utmost priority and responsibility of schools and SROs,” she said. “However, there may be a time where an SRO is harming the safety and comfort of students.”

On Monday, the ACCESS Project pitched a school resource officer plan to the Lynnwood City Council. The organization envisions a pilot program for at least one school year, after which the school board and community members could decide if they want to keep the program.

In Hurst’s June 26 statement, he said Police Chief Cole Langdon has offered a police officer to the district at no cost if it decides to reinstate the school resource officer program.

The Lynnwood Police Department currently has 70 commissioned officers, Langdon said at a June 1 work session. In 2024, the City Council approved funding 80 commissioned officers, but that number has since gone down to 72 as the police department has had to make cuts due to the city’s general fund deficit.

At the work session, Langdon said the decreased staffing has made it difficult for officers to address specialized issues such as gang violence and crime prevention.

Despite the lack of staffing, Hurst said Monday that Langdon sees providing a school resource officer as a priority.

“He would sacrifice a little bit to get someone into the schools,” Hurst said. “He feels it’s proactive and the benefit would be a reduction of, well we hope, shootings and escalated crime.”

At the City Council meeting, Webster presented school crime data from the Lynnwood Police Department, comparing crime before and after the school board terminated the school resource officer program.

At Meadowdale High School, case reports increased from 31 to 50 from 2018-20 to 2022-24, calls for service increased from 241 to 244 and arrests stayed the same at five in both time periods.

Lynnwood middle schools saw a more dramatic increase. While school resource officers were not officially stationed at middle schools, they would still spend time there, Webster said.

At Meadowdale Middle School, case reports increased from six to 23, calls for service increased from 45 to 98 and arrests increased from two to six.

At College Place Middle School, case reports increased from 12 to 18, calls for service increased from 87 to 95 and arrests increased from zero to three.

Council member Isabel Mata asked if the increases could be attributed to other changes in 2020, including the COVID-19 pandemic and social media.

“The thing we were measuring was what data was available before and after,” Webster said. “The root causes of those activities, we don’t have data to support that. I can make assumptions, but I don’t have data.”

Webster was joined at the City Council meeting by Marie McCoy, a licensed clinical social worker and Edmonds School District parent. She said that while it’s important to fund school counselors, the scope of work is different from that of a school resource officer.

“There is a very distinct role that counselors play and what an SRO could do to help protect the students and the community at large,” she said. “… We can’t be seen as someone that would also tell them to get out of the hallways and go to class and stuff like that. We have to keep that therapeutic relationship.”

The push comes after the Northshore school board chose to end its last school resource officer contract at Bothell High School in May. Following the board’s decision, hundreds of students held a walkout in protest, saying they feel safer with a police officer at school.

Other school districts in Snohomish County, including Everett, Marysville and Mukilteo, still have school resource officers.

In his June 26 statement, Hurst mentioned policies he aims to implement to raise household incomes and promote stability in the home lives of young people, including community work force agreements and a wage theft ordinance. Hurst also said he is open to exploring raising the minimum wage in Lynnwood, a topic the council began discussing earlier this year.

Later this year, the city’s first-ever Youth Council will begin meeting. The group consists of 15 teenagers in the Edmonds School District and will focus on issues affecting young people in the city.

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.