Officer Andrew Lehr is MLPD’s new School Resource Officer.

By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer

Officer Andrew Lehr of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department became the new School Resource Officer in early December following the departure of Matt Graeff.
“I put in for it. Actually, I love working with the kids... as fun as fighting with drunks on Saturday night is...,” he said in a Feb. 2 interview.
Lehr, who is from Bishop and still makes his home there (along with two kids and two horses), will celebrate his seventh anniversary with the MLPD this April. He is already working at the schools 80 percent of his time, with his remaining duty time spent on patrol.
“I’ve worked patrol, I’ve worked detectives, and now I’m doing the school resource thing,” he said. “I’m also the fire arms instructor for the department.”
Once he has completed training in Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE, a police officer lead series of classroom lessons founded in 1983), he will teach 5th grader how to resist peer pressure and live drug and violence-free productive lives.
“Having an officer in the schools is huge. I’m over there all the time, so the kids know I’m there. So if they get called into the office to talk with me, and see me, they’d rather talk with me,” he said.
There had been a move last year as part of the Town of Mammoth Lakes’ cost-cutting to eliminate the SRO, but Police Chief Randy Schienle persuasively argued the merits of having an officer present on Mammoth’s school campuses.
Lehr will also take resource officer training in Sacramento in March. “It’s learning to deal with juveniles, contacting parents, telling them their rights... making sure our ducks are in a row.”
Lehr will also be putting together a disaster plan for the schools, he said.