Former Commissioner Fred Bealefeld has been a police officer for over 30 years.
Towson University welcomed former Baltimore City Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld to the West Village Commons Tuesday evening as part of its Signature Forum speakers series.
Dr. Nancy Grasmick, a presidential scholar at Towson University and regional and national education pioneer, oversees the series that explores issues related to public education in the 21st century.
Bealefeld spoke to students, public school administrators and police officers about the importance of school safety. The former police commissioner talked about the history of school shootings in the U.S. and the backgrounds of the shooters who took so many lives. Most of those shooters shared issues with mental illness and bullying and, as Bealefeld said, they all fell through the cracks.
“We have to rely on very early warning stages,” he said in an interview with WBAL-TV. “It’s almost unheard of that people just snap without warning in our society. I think the better network is conversation to the degree that schools become a network of information.”
The Signature Forum Series is intended to create a discourse between school leaders and national experts on topics timely and relevant to the education field. Each of its six parts provides access to up-to-date research and the chance for faculty, regional school system staff and community members to collaborate on solutions to challenges in education.
The first part of the series was held in January, and featured acclaimed neuroscience experts Dr. Benjamin Carson and Dr. Martha Denckla in a discussion about the anatomy of the brain and its impact on how students learn.
