Questioning DARE: Baker police officer assigned to teach DARE skips school instead

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BAKER, LA (WAFB) - The City of Baker lost nearly all of its grant money to teach school kids about drug awareness after the police officer in charge of the program simply didn’t show up to any of the schools.

The officer in question is Baker Police Lt. Demarcus Dunn. He remains in charge of the department’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program, despite having failed to teach a single DARE class during the entire fall semester. Dunn is also an extended cousin of Baker Police Chief Carl Dunn.

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And while documents show that Lt. Dunn was the new full-time DARE officer in the fall, internal department emails tell a different story.

Lt. Dunn’s supervisor, Capt. Chris Becnel, wrote an email to the police chief on March 22, explaining his discovery of the lieutenant’s failure to teach any DARE classes:

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Chief, today Lt. Dunn came and advised me that the DARE Grant for the 2017-2018 School year needed to be modified. He informed me that he didn’t teach any DARE Classes during the fall semester at any schools and just started to teach a class at Impact Charter School.

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The captain explained that the department’s grant award would fall from $20,958 to $2,117, “a reduction of $18,841,” Becnel wrote.

In his closing remarks, Becnel told the chief: “I do not know what Lt. Dunn was doing as a full time DARE officer for the Fall School Semester. He only submitted paper work today for a Spring Semester Schedule for two classes at one school.”

At the time of that email, roughly three-fourths of the school year had already passed.

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The police chief admitted he was aware Lt. Dunn hadn’t taught any of the DARE classes, but blamed the school principals for allegedly preventing the lieutenant from coming to the schools. “Because of politics, my officers have not been allowed,” the chief said. “I took on some nasty people for this campaign and I am still feeling the after affects, and that is the truth. That's all I can tell you — the truth.”

But Baker Schools Superintendent Herman Brister denied that ever happened, adding principals don’t have the authority to keep DARE out of schools. “At no time during my tenure here did we say we do not want DARE as part of the Baker City School System, and at no time did I give my principals direction not to allow DARE to be on their campuses this year,” Brister said.

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Though Lt. Dunn failed to teach the DARE courses, he went to a DARE conference in Shreveport for five days last July at the Sam's Town Hotel & Casino. The chief explained this, saying the lieutenant went to get his continuing education credits

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When the police chief was confronted with how the situation negatively impacted the school kids, he said, “I agree 100 percent, but guess what? Baker Police Department got more of than any other police department across the country? Love for the kids. We got it.”

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