Stunned by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut, police and school officials in one Colorado county felt they had to do something to reassure students, the Associated Press reports. Their solution: Have police officers on patrol do their arrest reports and other paperwork in school parking lots, rather than simply pulling off the road or returning to the police station. It’s had an immediate calming impact at a time when the nation is embroiled in the emotional debate over gun control and gun violence.
“The kids get to see us in a new light. We’re not showing up after something bad has happened,” said Sgt. Chris O’Neal of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department south of Denver.
O’Neal spoke while filling out paperwork outside Fox Creek Elementary School – one of six schools he visits daily.
He and his colleagues were ordered to use school lots to file their reports just days after the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn…