On the top of every parents’ mind was just how bad drug use and violent fights are at WSHS and according to Southwest Precinct Officers Bob Besaw and Tom Burns, the answer is good news; Not bad at all, and due in large part to the change in school administration.

“Would I be concerned about the drug problem? No, I mean drugs are always a concern. Is it an epidemic? Is it out of control? I would say no it’s not,” Officer Burns said.

“If Bob (Besaw) and I aren’t getting along and we are hell bound to fight, we’re going to fight. But is there a problem? Absolutely not,” he added, speaking to the inevitability of the occasional fight and admitting that he got into a few back in high school.

The officers, who patrol the school during lunch and after classes end, answered parents’ questions during a WSHS Parent Teacher Student Association meeting on Oct. 27.

The officers credit much of the school’s reduced drug and violence issues to the change in administration that occurred this year that put Principal Ruth Medsker in charge. Principal Medsker was unavailable for comment by print time.

“You are incredibly lucky to have the administration that you have this year,” Officer Burns said. “It has changed dynamically for us. Last year we didn’t get cooperation and things were kept from us (by the administration). It was an incredible amount of frustration.

“The administration last year appeared to be an administration that wanted to hang with the kids and be their friends and I don’t believe in that. I wasn’t raised that way; we didn’t go to school that way. Administration to me is about leadership and not trying to be their friends. So this year; it has been phenomenal. The kids are held much more accountable,” he added.

Officer Besaw said the main time frame where they have problems is during the lunch hour when students go out into the neighborhoods or to the nearby Jack in the Box and 7-11. He said the number of problem students is very small.

“The problem here, we are talking maybe ten kids,” Officer Burns said. “We know them all by name and the great thing is the staff knows them all by name so what we do is work together and share information. We focus on those kids during school hours. We have a couple of kids here that are selling dope. We focus on those key people that we realize are a problem to the community and the students that are doing the right thing, and we follow them around. So, they are not very happy with us.”

“Right, wrong or indifferent, the reality is that most of the kids we end up dealing with in a negative connotation don’t live in West Seattle,” he added. “They live in Rainier Valley; they live in Burien or South Park. The reality is (these students believe), “I have no vested interest, I don’t live here, my parents don’t live here and there is nothing here for me.”

One of the parents in attendance told the officers that she believes WSHS has a stigma for having a major drug problem and asked, in comparison to other schools, if that is true.

“I wouldn’t say it is any worse here than anywhere else,” Officer Besaw said.

They said drug use is mostly limited to marijuana and alcohol, and that patrolling the alleyways around the school during lunchtime has drastically reduces complaints (over last year) from community members about students smoking marijuana in the alleys.

Officer Burns said he believes the media sometimes plays a negative roll in both students’ use of drugs and the community’s perception of the drug problem.

“I look at things in kind of an old fashioned way,” Officer Burns, 52, said. “I was talking to the principal about this. When the news sits there and pounds on the paper that with Four Loko if you drink one it’s like drinking six beers, it's almost making it a good thing for kids.”

Officer Burns was referring to recent story on Oct. 8 where nine Central Washington University students were hospitalized after drinking too much Four Loko, a mixture of energy drink and malt liquor that weighs in 12 percent alcohol.

Officer Burns also sees issues getting blown out of proportion on media forums.

“The (West Seattle Blog) to me is such a positive but also a negative,” he said. “You get people on there that just want to use it as a venting post and blow things out of proportion. (People will say) “Drugs are rampant!” you know, and they might have seen two or three kids smoking a marijuana cigarette and now we have this huge drug problem at West Seattle (High School). If you look on that blog, and I followed it for a while but I don’t now, you get the same people reading the same hysteria.

“I look at the Blog and it is just such a great tool to share information and share different things but at the same time there are people that get on there and use it as a network for their own personal frustrations and views on life and it does create hysteria.”

Both officers agreed that West Seattle (the peninsula as a whole) has it good when it comes to crime.

“I can tell you from working the worst parts of the city – Bob (Besaw) and I started in Rainier Valley and in our careers we’ve worked in Belltown and downtown where last night somebody got murdered on 2nd and Pine in broad daylight – the crime rate over here, the support of the officers, the support of the community and the community banding together is incredible,” Officer Burns said.

“This is such a safe part of the city, it’s like its own little island over here,” he added. “Our biggest problems are car prowls and daytime burglaries and that’s not even that high of a rate, and those are all crimes where there are no people involved.”

Officer Burns has worked for the Seattle Police Department for 22 years and Officer Besaw for 23 years. Both officers attended high school in West Seattle. Their daily routine is a mixture of patrolling the school and patrolling the Junction business district.

When asked by a parent if the officers saw themselves sticking around West Seattle for the next five to six years, neither was certain.

“Honestly, I don’t know about me,” Officer Burns said. “It’s just too slow for me over here to be honest with you. That’s the funny thing about West Seattle is we’ll drive around for two to three hours without a call.”