From Sept. 9 to Nov. 12, the Issaquah Police Department held a Citizens Academy to teach willing community members about the ins and outs of police work. Reporter writer Daniel Nash attended — this series chronicles his experience and the lessons learned about policing in Issaquah.

Week four of class began with a presentation by the Issaquah Police Department’s school resource officer, Diego Zanella.

“Hello everyone, I’m Officer Diego Zanella. I’ve been with the Issaquah Police Department for nine years. During that time, I did a little bit of everything from patrol to [Special Operations and Tactics] to detective work, until a few weeks ago when I became our school resource officer. You may have noticed my accent. I am from Poland.” Zanella pauses, then laughs. “No, actually, I am from Florence, Italy.”

These little bits of humor aren’t just typical of Zanella — who stands with an easy, relaxed posture at almost all times — they’re a vital tool in his work maintaining a police presence in Issaquah’s public schools.

The idea is simple: If an officer can relate to students, students are more likely to help that officer keep the peace.

Zanella gave a simple example: While standing outside Issaquah High School as students come in, a student might ask him about his accent. Zanella could ask the student to guess the origin of his accent and razz him a bit if he answered wrong, or pull out his Poland joke if he answered right. He could continue this back-and-forth with the student every time he sees him, establishing rapport and trust — enough trust to learn about bullying or drugs that might be around the school on a given day.

“Sooner or later, he’ll tell me about a gun,” Zanella said.

Obviously, Zanella hopes that will never be necessary. But, as with all things improved by preparation, it’s better to have a trusted source of information and never need him, than to find yourself isolated and caught unawares.

I had gone into Zanella’s presentation assuming school resource officers were a post-Columbine development but, as it turned out, the specialty is nothing new. The first recorded school resource officer was employed in Flint, Michigan, in 1953, according to research published in American School & University. Fifteen years later, police in Fresno, California, established the program in elementary and middle schools to foster trust with the next generation of citizens. Such officers embedded on campuses over the ensuing decades would be responsible for a similar amalgam of public relations and on-campus policing that persists to this day — though the safety aspect of the role has undoubtedly made gains in the nearly two decades since Columbine. Zanella noted that the protocol for active shooter situations since 1999 had shifted from containment (according to records of the incident, the majority of the Columbine killings occurred while Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputies were outside the high school) to engagement.

Zanella doesn’t perform his job alone — at Issaquah High School he works closely with Security Chief Neil Lasher. This type of cooperation is important because, as Zanella notes, each man has a set of privileges and prohibitions that the other lacks.

For example, Zanella can’t make the call to search a student’s backpack — not without clear probable cause. But as a school administrator, Lasher totally can. The reverse can be true for cases in which a student might need to be physically restrained.

“If you work well together, you can really make a difference,” Zanella said.

Not that the blending of roles never leads to confusion. Sometimes a teacher might call on Zanella to take disciplinary measures against a difficult student only to be told that’s not something he can help with — certainly not without administrative cooperation.

And there are issues that can be a tough call, jurisdictionally. It’s a fine line between standard schoolyard teasing — an administrative issue — and harassment, which is a crime.

But Zanella’s job does provide opportunities to be an educator and mentor. He works with parents, both informing and learning about their children. He educates them about the law, such as sexting and the child pornography implications for minors. Marijuana and its recent legalization come up a lot.

Zanella said he would like to get into elementary and middle school classrooms more.

“We have to tell them we are the good guys,” Zanella said. “High schoolers already know everything. … It’s a little bit late.”

Next: Week four continues with DUI enforcement