New Jersey town to station armed officer in each of its schools starting Jan. 2, fortify entrances and windows. Democrat Mayor favors stricter gun laws but says this is necessary for kids' safety

12/23/12, "Jersey town adopts schoolhouse Glocks," "Cops for Kids," NY Post, S. Edelman

"Don’t mess with Marlboro Township. The leafy, well-heeled New Jersey suburb will station a permanent armed cop in each of its nine schools starting Jan. 2.

It’s apparently the first district nationwide bent on packing heat in every schoolhouse since madman Adam Lanza gunned down 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14.

“We’ve made a collective decision as a town that we need armed security in each of our schools,” Mayor Jonathan Hornik told The Post. “With this new evil, you can’t just sit there and hope that it doesn’t happen in your town. We must protect our kids.”...

Besides putting a cop in each of its schools — one kindergarten, five elementary, two middle and one high school — Marlboro will consider fortifying entrances with steel doors and bulletproof glass and installing surveillance cameras “all over” to feed to the police department, Hornik said....

“This isn’t a luxury item. This is a necessity, based on what we saw happen in Connecticut,” said Hornik, a Democrat who supports an assault-weapons ban and stricter gun control.

The 40,000-resident Monmouth County town, home to many former Brooklynites and Staten Islanders, has taken groundbreaking safety measures before. In March 2001, it became one of the first towns in the nation to ban cellphone use while driving....

“If a district in New York state were to pursue that same solution — to bring armed police officers into the schools — we would support that decision,” said David Albert, spokesman for the New York School Boards Association.

But it won’t happen in New York City, said Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg, noting, “We are not considering having armed security officers in our buildings.”"...




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