DPS superintendent told board mayor would order police back into schools

The first footage to surface from the five-hour, closed-door school board meeting that Denver Public Schools fought to keep secret shows Superintendent Alex Marrero informing board members that then-Mayor Michael Hancock told him he planned to issue an executive order to force the reinstatement of armed police in schools if the board didn’t do so.

“The mayor can exact an executive order just like he did with the vaccination mandates. I understand this is a very problematic conversation to have. But it is going to happen. It is beyond our control,” Marrero told board members in the short video clip.

DPS board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson tweeted the nearly 2½-minute segment in the wake of the board’s vote Friday to release the video recording of its March 23 executive session — which a judge already had ordered the district to make public after ruling the meeting violated state law.

NEW:

Footage from the March 23rd Executive Session footage of the threat of an Executive Order from former Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock.

The Board President attempted to censure me for sharing this information with our communities and the Mayor denied making this remark. pic.twitter.com/BX0rdKAz8v

— Auon’tai M. Anderson (@AuontaiAnderson) July 21, 2023

The board’s executive session took place one day after a 17-year-old student at East High School shot and wounded two administrators inside the school. That and other shootings increased public pressure on the board to reverse a decision it made in June 2020 to ban armed police officers in district schools. The decision to ban school resource officers, or SROs, came during widespread protests against police violence following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Hours after the East shooting, Marrero sent the board’s members a letter saying he planned to put armed officers back in Denver’s comprehensive high schools despite the fact that doing so “likely violates” Board of Education policy. “I am willing to accept the consequences of my actions,” Marrero wrote.

Following the March 23 executive session, Anderson said in media interviews that Marrero told members of Hancock’s plan to issue an executive order to require that officers be placed back in the schools. Hancock, however, disputed making any threats and denied through a spokesman that an executive order was discussed — though Marrero later confirmed to The Denver Post that the mayor did discuss with him the use of such an order.

In the video clip, which Anderson also distributed to the news media on Saturday, Anderson argues that any discussion of reinstatement of SROs was moot and that the board had its hands tied, saying the “mayor needs to just go ahead and take that control and do it.”

“Whether we agree or disagree, our opinions truly don’t matter around the reinstitution of safety officers across the district because you now told us that you will override whatever the board tells you if it is not in line with reinstating SROs,” Anderson said in the clip. “You have now given that very clearly to us. And that if you don’t do it, the mayor plans to do it.”