To the Community:

June 9, 2022:  What happened last week in Uvalde shook our community and the entire nation to the core. As a result, many of you have inquired as to what the Bronxville Police Department does in cooperation with our schools to ensure the security and safety of our children. The goal of our Police Department and our Village government is to make this village as safe as possible, ever mindful that our youngest citizens must be able to go to school feeling safe and secure in their learning environments.

The following is a list of programs and practices employed by the Bronxville Police Department. In addition to the programs enumerated below, obviously there are some other things that the department is doing in conjunction with our schools that by necessity must be kept confidential between the parties so involved to further ensure safety and security. Our department asks that you place your trust in them as they are a very proactive, hands-on department and very responsive to community needs.

As a department, our police officers have been training regularly for years on responses to school shootings like Uvalde. In-house training is led by Sergeant Nicholas DeYoung who has been personally trained by the New York State Police, NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services, NYPD, FEMA, the National Tactical Officers Association, and the FBI.

In recent newspaper articles, discussion centered around training School Resource Officers (SRO‘s). The Village force was proactive and trained two officers as SRO’s prior to any of these recent events - with training provided by the Westchester County Police Academy and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. Two additional Officers are scheduled for SRO training in July.

We have also trained a record 11 Youth Officers. SRO’s and Youth Officers have been in the Bronxville School daily since the Uvalde shooting. 

Our officer management team has also shuffled their schedules to increase the availability and assignment of SRO’s and Youth Officers to the school and to respond in the affirmative to any needs our school administration deems necessary.

We are very fortunate that in a small community such as ours, we have direct communication and a seamless relationship with the entire Bronxville School security team headed by its Director, Victor Preni.

Our police department also has access to the surveillance cameras in the school with an ability to monitor if a critical incident or crime is underway that requires an immediate response.

As point of information, when officers respond to an active shooter report, it requires them to immediately confront the threat and take whatever action is necessary to neutralize the threat and/or the shooter as quickly as possible, regardless of the level of training or equipment of the first officers who respond to the scene.

We have also teamed up with Tuckahoe and Eastchester Police departments to have an Emergency Response Unit (ERU) that has been trained in active shooter scenarios for well over a decade. Currently Officer Amoruso is being trained to be an additional member of the ERU.

Due to the incredible proactive approach of the leadership of our Police Department, we have a very well trained staff.

Our police department also regularly participates with the school in lockdown and lockout drills and our Police Chief has been on the school’s Safety Committee for upwards of 20 years. The committee, whose members include faculty, administration, parents, school board members, community members and police officers meets once a month.

Due to the very fortuitous proximity of our police headquarters to the Bronxville School, our officers are also constantly monitoring the school, checking the perimeter, and keenly observing activity around the school.

An additional benefit of having many municipal neighbors nearby, we receive mutual aid from the Eastchester and Tuckahoe Police Departments and train together to form the above mentioned Emergency Response Unit (ERU).

In addition, we border the City of Yonkers which has the most experienced and best trained Emergency Response Unit. Vehicles, equipment, staff and help is literally minutes away from what is considered the finest unit in the county as their experience and training is the gold standard.

There is no better example than their response to our request for mutual aid during the suspected active shooter situation at NYP /Lawrence Hospital several years ago.

The quality, speed and effectiveness of the coordinated response is a perfect example of how departments should work together in a seamless fashion to effectuate the safety and security of communities.

In addition, the County police are available to assist and there is a county wide mutual aid response system that also brings other forces to the Village within minutes if needed.

A small force, by necessity, due to our population and land area, our police department has unprecedented access to literally dozens of equally well-trained officers.

Though we are focusing on the Bronxville School because it is our largest educational institution with over 1600 students, our Police Department is actively dedicated to securing the safety of all children who go to school in our Village. To that end, the department routinely does security surveys of all of the schools and makes recommendations as to additional safety measures or practices. Our department also hosts a meeting of all the school administrators at the opening of every school year to review security and safety and introduce new practices. Special patrols have been dedicated to all school buildings within the Village since the incident in Uvalde.

During investigations into many of the recent shootings, information was developed that the suspects used social media to post threats and or disturbing images. Please pay attention to your child's social media accounts and report any suspicious or disturbing activities to the Police Department immediately. Encourage your children to do the same.

For additional information on all types of police training, I direct you to the police department’s website, which provides an annual report not only of police activity but training such as the active shooter training discussed above and other training including implicit bias, Taser and firearms as examples. This site is updated and very comprehensive containing a wealth of information that I know you will find enlightening.

The goal of our Police Department and our Village government is to make this village as safe as possible, ever mindful that our youngest citizens must be able to go to school feeling safe and secure in their learning environments.

The Police Department and members of Village government welcome any questions that we may not have answered in this column and/or on the department website.

Mayor Mary Marvin

Deputy Mayor Robert S. Underhill

Trustee Helen Knapp

Trustee William Fredericks

Trustee Mary Taylor Behrens

Village Administrator James Palmer

Chief Christopher Satriale

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