Democrats spent four years trying to remove cops from schools.
Monday morning in Boca Raton, a school resource officer stood between a 225-pound alligator and a parking lot full of children during morning drop-off.
You decide who was right.
What Happened at Eagles Landing
Eagles Landing Middle School sits along the Everglades Canal Network in west Boca Raton – which means it shares a fence line with some of Florida's most active wildlife territory.
Monday morning, during the busiest ten minutes of the school day, someone spotted an 11-foot alligator in the canal right beside the school entrance.
Parents were still pulling in.
Kids were still getting out of cars.
Officer Derek Mazer got there fast.
He secured the perimeter, kept every student and staff member at a safe distance, and held that position while wildlife specialists from Swamp Addict Outdoors responded and removed the animal.
No panic.
No injuries.
No child got anywhere near a reptile that could take off an arm.
That is not luck.
That is a trained law enforcement officer doing exactly what he was put there to do.
What Would Have Happened Without Him
After George Floyd's death in 2020, Democrats declared war on school resource officers.
Minneapolis pulled every SRO from its schools.
Portland, Seattle, Denver, Oakland, and San Francisco did the same.
In Alexandria, Virginia, the city council voted to eliminate school police entirely – then reversed course three months later after students started showing up with guns.
Altogether, at least 50 districts serving over 1.7 million children ended their school policing programs or cut their budgets between May 2020 and June 2022.
The argument from the left was that police made students feel unsafe.
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2056068382647001484?s=20
The argument from reality is what happened in Boca Raton on Monday morning.
Without Officer Mazer, you have a parking lot full of distracted parents, a mob of curious middle schoolers, and a prehistoric predator the size of a compact car sitting in a canal ten feet away.
"Everybody's having buyer's remorse for defunding the police," Fraternal Order of Police National Vice President Joe Gamaldi said after blue cities started begging for their SROs back.
Florida never needed the reminder.
The State That Never Forgot
After 17 students and staff were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, Florida passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.
It required every Florida school to have a law enforcement officer or trained guardian on campus.
Not a social worker.
Not a de-escalation counselor.
A sworn officer.
While Minneapolis was celebrating empty hallways, Florida was staffing every school in the state.
This is what that looks like on a Monday morning when a gator shows up at the front door.
https://twitter.com/DailyLoud/status/2056308506722992379?s=20
It is worth noting that Eagles Landing is not even the first Florida school this spring to deal with this exact situation.
In March, an SRO at BridgePrep Academy in Osceola County personally captured an alligator that showed up during class dismissal and had it relocated to Lake Toho before most parents even knew it happened.
Two schools.
Two officers.
Two situations that could have ended with a child in a hospital.
Neither did.
May Is the Month Florida Parents Need to Know About
This is not a random event, and it is not going to stop.
Alligator courtship begins in April.
Mating peaks in May and June.
During those months, male alligators become territorial, aggressive, and willing to go places they normally wouldn't.
Florida has an estimated 1.3 million wild alligators living in virtually every body of fresh water in the state – including the drainage canals running directly behind schools, subdivisions, golf courses, and shopping centers.
In 2016, a 2-year-old boy named Lane Graves was dragged into a lagoon at Walt Disney World's Grand Floridian Resort.
His father jumped in and fought the animal bare-handed.
Lane still died.
In 2023, Florida recorded 23 alligator attacks – the highest number in the last 30 years.
The danger is not hypothetical.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission runs a Nuisance Alligator Hotline at 866-FWC-GATOR for situations where an animal is acting aggressively or appearing in unexpected places.
Use it.
Never walk up to an alligator, never throw it food, and keep dogs on a leash well away from any water's edge — to a gator, a small dog is just prey that wandered close enough.
And if you live in a state where Democrats convinced your school board to get rid of its SROs, call your school board.
Monday morning in Boca Raton is a pretty good argument for why that decision was always wrong.
Sources:
- Palm Beach Schools Police Department, Facebook statement, May 19, 2026.
- Skyler Shepard, "11-foot, 225-pound alligator spotted in canal near Florida middle school entrance," CBS12, May 19, 2026.
- "Crime spikes force schools to reinstate resource officers as defund movement collapses," Fox News, February 16, 2022.
- Maya Riser-Kositsky et al., "School Police: Which Districts Cut Them? Which Brought Them Back?" Education Week, June 2022.
- "Alligator captures near Osceola County school during class dismissal," Yahoo News/WFTV, March 2026.
- NBC 6 South Florida, "Alligator attacks in Florida are rare: FWC," May 2025.
