Flowers left last June after Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed during a lunchtime altercation in the Garfield parking lot (Image: Converge Media with permission to CHS)
Results from a survey of students about campus safety conducted last fall
Many at Garfield High School won’t be wearing purple and white this Friday as they put on orange shirts for National Gun Violence Awareness Day and hold a remembrance of a fallen friend.
Wednesday night, some will call on the Seattle School Board to support a plan to opening the way for Seattle Police officers to again be assigned to the 23rd Ave campus where gun violence has taken a terrible toll.
Friday’s planned student walkout at the largest public high school serving Capitol Hill and the Central District will include a celebration of life for Amarr Murphy-Paine, the 17-year-old shot and killed while trying to break up a fight in the school’s parking lot a year ago to the day of the planned remembrance. The victim’s father Arron Murphy-Paine is scheduled to speak during Friday’s event. The 17-year-old’s family has sued the district alleging officials were negligent in their security practices at Garfield.
There have been no arrests in the June 2024 case.
The anniversary of Murphy-Paine’s killing comes as Seattle’s public school system is considering rolling back a five-year-old reform that removed uniformed police officers assigned to the city’s campuses.
Students and families are ready to speak out Wednesday night as the city and the district debate a plan to pilot a program that would return an assigned School Engagement Officer to Garfield. Previously known as community resource officers, the program was dropped by the district in the summer of 2020 during the height of Black Lives Matter protests against police killings when the school board suspended a partnership with SPD that provided five armed officers with rotations and placements across Seattle’s public schools.
Wednesday night, the board will hear public comments as it weighs changes that would allow a one-year pilot of reintroducing the campus cops. The district says the School Engagement Officer at Garfield would be a “a uniformed law enforcement officer… assigned to schools to respond to emergencies, support campus safety, and build relationships with students and staff.”
In preparation, the district surveyed Garfield students and families about the proposal. A similar survey conducted in fall of 2024 included only feedback from students. It showed mixed support for returning officers to campus with 46% of respondents reporting they felt safer with a police officer stationed outside the school. 37% said they did not feel safer. 17% said they were not sure. When it came to officers entering school buildings, 61% of students expressed they were comfortable or very comfortable with the idea. 46%, again, said that having an officer inside the school would enhance their sense of safety. UPDATE: This paragraph has been updated to correct our reporting of the survey’s results in which we transposed the totals for those who said they would not feel safer with those who said they were unsure.
In open ended responses, student concerns expressed about having an officer on campus included worries about “profiling, over-policing, and potential negative impacts on the school environment,” according to the results.
Reshaping the program to address concerns about mixing law enforcement and the education environment — and paying for the renewed programs — is already in the works.
CHS reported here on $ 235 million earmarked in a proposed school levy renewal going to voters this fall for Seattle Public Schools safety investments including the possible return of police officers to Seattle campuses. To better balance the effort, the Seattle City Council is weighing amendments to buttress any direct spending on law enforcement with increased spending on social programs and mental health including increased spending for programs like Restorative Practices and the Fresh Bucks healthy food program.
A proposed amendment from Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, meanwhile, would “clarify that the priorities and implementation principles intended to be advanced” by the levy “would promote equitable access to services for historically underserved communities, and ensure that safety investments in the levy prioritize addressing root causes of violence, nonpunitive approaches, and do not contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Seattle Public Schools says it has also overhauled its campus security programs and made improvements at Garfield following Murphy-Paine’s murder.
This spring, the district announced major updates to its safety and security efforts including new camera technology and protocols for entering district campus buildings, and increased security and police presence at district campuses where worries about gun violence are highest headed into the summer.
Larger trends are also showing positive signs. The King County Prosecutor’s office says shootings in the county dropped 37% in the first three months of 2025 compared to last year. But a core problem remains. 12% of those nearly 300 shootings involved victims under the age of 18, the county says.
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