Police officers encounter a variety of situations throughout the day and training for the wide range of circumstances is a never-ending job. Recently, statistics have shown that there may be specific reasons teens are a portion of the population that can begin with a calm situation that escalates quickly.

Evelina Cheng, 12, entered the “Youth Voices” national contest knowing exactly what she wanted to draw.

Workshop helps parents de-escalate conflict with youth.

A group of high school students who organized a local March for Our Lives rally in March to advocate for stricter gun laws in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, didn’t want to stop there. So they encouraged Sen. Adam Morfeld to introduce an interim legislative study to examine school safety and Friday found themselves in front of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

The Nebraska Education Committee spent nearly five hours on Friday taking a deep dive into school safety. The rise in school shootings across the nation prompted discussion, with one thought being to get more guns into schools.

A model memorandum of understanding (MOU) governing the role of school resource officers (SROs) in Massachusetts schools was released today by Attorney General Maura Healey, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Remember that debate about school resource officers a couple of months ago? Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemiester does, and as a result, both school resource officers and school administrators are getting more training. “We want to ensure administrators and our SROs have a consistent message about the role of SROs,” Bliemiester said. “This is all part of an ongoing evolution to provide our officers and the administrators with what we believe is the most important roles the SROs will serve.”

Over the past week, a Facebook video went viral, showing an El Paso police officer drawing his gun on a group of Latino kids outside a community center and handcuffing the person taking the video. The video has drawn outrage — and rightly so — as an illustration of the urgent need for robust police policies and training emphasizing de-escalation and how to interact with youth.

Seven teens loitered in a San Francisco park, and before long two police officers shuffled over and started grilling them. “Get over here,” a female officer yelled. “Sit your ass down.” Five of the kids stared at the officer with wide eyes and promptly planted themselves on the ground. Two others crossed their arms and ignored the officer’s commands. Suddenly, the officer burst out laughing and hugged the flustered kids. “Sorry,” she said, “sorry!” This was the first role playing exercise of the day.

San Francisco police are attending a “Policing the Teen Brain” train-the-trainer session this week to prepare to train officers on improving their interactions with the city’s youth.