New Armed Police Officer Hired To Patrol Chatham Elementary School

CHATHAM, NJ — With the school year well underway, the Chatham Borough Police Department recently announced the appointment of the Chatham School District's newest special law enforcement officer.

Officer Manny Cruz will officially be patrolling the Washington Avenue Elementary School, police said.

This past summer, the Chatham Board of Education announced that the district's plan was to hire special law enforcement officers for the 2022-23 school year at all Chatham Elementary Schools.

Up until recently, the district only had armed officers on campus at all Chatham schools, grades 4 through 12.

"We have worked with Chatham Township and Chatham Borough to place Special Law Enforcement Officers at each of our schools. Washington Avenue School now joins the others in having a SLEO in place to help keep our students and staff safe," Chatham Superintendent Michael LaSusa said.

Jill Critchley Weber, President of the Chatham Board of Education, previously said that having Class 3 officers on campus provides additional security benefits. "If there is an incident for example in the L wing, they can immediately say there is an active situation in the L wing, the rest of the building can just lock down and stay in place and they can address it right there versus somebody calling 911 and it going to the county dispatch… the response time is really critical."

According to the Chatham Borough Police Department, Officer Cruz recently retired as a Sergeant from the Union County Sheriff's Office.

In addition to more armed officers in the schools, the school district's current safety plan calls for officers to visit each school, including Chatham Day School, at least three times.

"We have onboarded new officers this school year at Chatham Middle School, Southern Boulevard School, and Milton Avenue School. We did not have any turnover at Lafayette Avenue School or Chatham High School, so those officers are veteran and familiar faces to our community,"

Class III special law enforcement officers are armed and are retired officers from the police force. Although they are being funded through the Board of Education budget they are still considered members of the local police departments.