Mayor Jonathan Hornik of the affluent suburb of Marlboro, NJ (population 40,191) is placing armed police officers in all the district’s nine schools beginning this week. The town’s police department (consisting of 67 full-time officers) and the board of education have endorsed his plan; funds will come out of the latter’s $77 million budget. (With 5,826 enrolled students, the township spends roughly $13,290 to educate each pupil.) The average salary for a police officer in Marlboro is $49,000.
The FBI reported in 2003 that the violent crime rate in Marlboro is very low at 0.4 per 1,000 people. Number of murders and homicides was 1. Despite or because of these numbers, who knows, the mayor (a Democrat) claims to have made the decision to arm all schools immediately after the elementary school shooting in Newtown, CT and before NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre suggested armed guards at every school in the country. The typical Marlboro police officer has never fired a weapon on duty.
