Written by: Laila Arroyo & Andrie Magday
Morro Bay High School has gained a lot of new faces for the 2022 school year. One of those is Officer Gillespie, who is the school resource officer for MBHS and Del Mar Elementary. Officer Gillespie grew up in the city of Fresno and graduated from Clovis West Highschool, later attending the Merchant Marine Academy at Long Island (Federal Service Academy), then he served for 4 years in the Military. Hobbies and favorites of his include fishing, hiking, and surfing,. He has always liked the beach and was very surprised to hear that not a lot of kids here surf.
Officer Gillespie worked in several different places before becoming a police officer in Morro Bay. He has worked in the gas industry and has also worked fixing ships. Prior to working here as an SRO, he worked in Fresno for a couple of years as a police officer. Officer Gillespie has been here for 18 months and in 6 of those months, he has been our SRO. When he moved here to start working as an SRO he had a little culture shock, since Fresno is a pretty busy city and there’s a lot going on, unlike here. When it comes to trusting the SRO, he stated that he shouldn’t have to try to gain trust.
As a lot of students know, we also have Marvin Pech our Campus Security here at Morro Bay. Marvin is the eyes and ears of the administration as he deals with people that aren’t supposed to be on campus. An SRO does something more different than campus security, not to get those two confused. Though what exactly is an SRO? SRO’s are contracted to the school district for security on campus. A difference is that campus security from an SRO is investigating sexual assaults, accusations of rape, etc…
Our SRO, Alex Gillespie, is called into dances or any other after school activities as a source of security for students. He deals with parents who have no custody of the child and makes sure the child is safe. Since police officers carry firearms, a lot of students tend to stay away or have a hard time trusting them, though he stated that “I don’t want to be the bad guy.” As he mentions that he always tries to make conversation and give out advice in unfortunate events. If you ever see him around campus, don’t be shy to say hi, or ask how his day is going.
