As we said hello to the new school year, we also said hello to Officer Jason Abel, our new school resource officer, aka, SRO. Officer Abel is a full-time husband and dad with two daughters and a three-year-old beagle named Luke. He enjoys fishing, hunting, tubing, snowmobiling, gardening, time at the lake, and just being outside in general.

Officer Abel was born and raised in Breckenridge Minnesota. His favorite subjects in high school were social studies and history and his least favorite was math. He lived on his uncle’s farm for 13 years milking cows, attended the police academy in 2005, and is currently on his twelfth year in the police force.

In the police force you see and experience lot of weird and strange things. For officer Abel, one strange thing he has experienced was he once had a female try to drown herself by drinking toilet water in a detox.

When asked “why did you want to be a cop?” most people respond with “To protect and serve.” However, for Officer Abel, he had a different answer. “I believe I had a purpose in life and maybe protecting other people pulled me into law enforcement.”

So, what exactly does Officer Abel do? To some, he’s an informal counselor and works at McKinley, Madison, and Longfellow. His primary job is to make sure all students are safe and foremost. He also takes reports. Fifty one percent of his job is talking a lot with kids and teachers.

There is a six-year rotation between school resource officers. If given the choice, Officer Abel would stay at North for as long as he wanted to. “I was told earlier in my law enforcement career that if I ever wanted an informing and challenging job to become an SRO. I was told the bond between students and a law enforcement officer is such a rewarding feeling, and when the SRO position opened up, I interviewed for the spot and was chosen by Principal Dahlen,” said Abel, “the students and staff have just been so awesome.”

One of the hardest things about Officer Abel’s job right now is trying to remember names. Every day is a challenge for him and not in a bad way. He’s doing things in his career that he’s never done before and he wants to be that person that students who have issues or concerns go to and talk to.

Furthermore, cop talks are going to be different this year. Abel is doing something called “Accident Recom”. He plans to combine math and physics to work through a real life, hands on accident with students. He’s going to take a week out of every month and recreate an accident. One of the things he’s planning on doing is bringing in a crashed car and a mannequin and measuring skid marks to figure out the speeds of the vehicles, time of the impact, and much more.

Accident Recom will be on Monday, periods one and two, Tuesday, periods three and four, Wednesday, periods five and six, and Thursday periods seven and eight and Friday will be all day. This will be student led and student will work in groups for the accident.

Accident Recom is open for anybody with open periods. If you have detention, one hour of AR will equal two hours off your detention. It will be fun, a little bit of a challenge, and rewarding and will start at the end of September.

Officer Abel doesn’t like coming early to school just like students.  That is why it’s a great idea to have Accident Recom during the school day. He really wants to get kids involved and going.

Officer Abel promises a real-life detective case and is always willing to take feedback and ideas. Each month will be something new and exciting. This is a great way to meet the new SRO! So, come in during an open period and get hands on, on a police case with Officer Jason Abel!