Being Safe this School Year

The goal for the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office this school year is to get through with no problems and make the buildings a safe place for children to learn.

Sheriff Matt Lutz said over the years they’ve seen a rise in the types of calls they’ve received from local schools. These range from bomb threats, to kids threatening kids or kids threatening teachers.

The sheriff warns students to be aware of what you’re saying, even things meant as a joke can spark an investigation.

“Anytime a kid, a student makes a threat of any sort that’s going to be taken serious that’s going to be followed up on and we have a lot of investigative avenues that we travel down most of the time we find the information we need to solved those cases and to charge in those cases,” said Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz.

This year the amount of school resource officers provided by the office has double to eleven. Sheriff Lutz said these officers bridge the gap between students and law enforcement, allowing students to see them as human, but also holding students accountable for their actions.

“I’ve been a proponent for a long time. You hear a lot of stories about arming teachers. You hear a lot of stories about what we can do to make our school’s safer. I’m a firm believer that, that cruiser parked out front and having that SRO in the building is one of the safest things that we can do,” explained Lutz.

Sheriff Lutz said if a student sees something out of the ordinary or feels bullied or threatened in anyway, they should get to a safe place and then report it to a teacher, parent or law enforcement.