The Columbus, Ohio school district ended their contract with the city's police department in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd's death and nationwide protests.
Lynnette Carter joined "Fox & Friends" Thursday to discuss how this has left her feeling scared when she drops her grandchildren off at school, as security incidents have skyrocketed without resource officers in place.
"Once they took the police out of the school system, it just got worse," she said, adding that the current security guards have no weapons or pepper spray and cannot use force.
The school district saw thousands of "major incidents" such as fights, assaults and sexual or gun-related offenses that required help from external agencies such as police during the first three months of this school year. The same district ended its school resource officer program two years earlier.
VIOLENCE SPIKED IN OUR FAILING SCHOOLS THANKS TO THESE POLICIES
Columbus City Schools, which is the state's largest with approximately 47,000 students, logged 3,389 fights and threats, including 1,128 physical assaults, 188 sexual misconduct incidents and 163 occurrences of vandalism, from Aug. 29 to Nov. 30, according to public records obtained by the Columbus Dispatch.
The school district disputed the accuracy of the numbers in a statement, but Carter said the security situation has deteriorated.
"[Guards] have no guns. They have no pepper spray, no anything. So they can only put their hands on the kids to stop them. And they have a time limit with that, which is about three seconds," Carter told host Steve Doocy.
Carter said she has talked to her grandkids about reaching out to her right away if anything happens because it takes an "hour or so" for police to arrive.
"The kids are not safe. Last week, they had a big fight in the school with no nearby police. People were injured. Staff members were injured," said Carter, adding that a 15-year-old boy brought a gun to school last week.
The school district allowed its contract with the Columbus Division of Police that provided school resource officers to expire in June 2020 as protests and calls for police reform swept the country in the wake of George Floyd's death.
The district now employs 171 safety and security staff members who are not armed, the outlet reported.
The district is slated to install 20 metal detection systems in high schools later this year at a cost of more than $3 million.
