This comes as nearly 50,000 Seattle public school students head back to class. And they are seeing heightened security.
But how safe do students really feel?
That question still lingers, especially at Garfield High School. There were two shootings there last school year, one of them was deadly.
A couple of students said they feel safe, at least today. And that was the caveat. They weren’t worried so much about today.
They say they worry about what happens if a Seattle police officer can no longer spend an entire school day here.
They are Garfield High School seniors now. But safety is still on the minds of Eric Ma and Richie Ngo on this first day of their last year of high school.
“Yes, I felt pretty safe because when I arrived at school, I seen a lot of police presence around the school,” said Richie. “I felt a lot of security around the school. There’s definitely more people outside the school which definitely made me feel safer.”
Eric was asked if he was worried about coming to school. “First day of school, not as much,” he said. “But I feel like maybe in the further weeks, I don’t think we could really have a police car here every single day. So, I feel like maybe in the future, it night not be as safe.”