Transcripts For CSPAN2 Senate Homeland Security Committee Hearing On Gun Violence And School... 20240714

On the issue. Other witnesses include the sheriff of Dallas County florida was also the chair of the marjorie was actual Public Safety commission. From yesterdays, this is two hours. Morning, i want to call this hearing order. The title of this hearing is examining state and federal regulations for an against violence. I want to welcome everybody to the hearing room. I should surely want to thank our witnesses for taking the time for your testimony. And in particular i want to give a shout out to max and tom and their families and the other families of the tragedies or attending here and for just your unbelievable dedication, turning your tragedy into hopefully some positive action that temperament tragedy or other families, its just remarkable what so many of the families have done in reaction to so many of these tragedies which really back to 1998 is where we really had, so the first elected. Members of 56, i know in your testimony, if youre talking about 710 shootings at columbine in 1999. Online, 13 people were killed. 12students, one teacher, when one were injured. In 2012, 26 killed. Two were injured. Thenparkland. Marjorie Stillman Douglas pool. 17 killed and 17injured. But that and casualty toll was simply unbelievable, quite honestly. I grew up these and 60. We were concerned about nuclear holocaust, we all drills and under our selves under our desks. We never have to worry about somebody entering our school and opened fire. This is the tragedy in terms of the lives lost and people injured, the families destroyed. But its a tragedy from the standpoint of the psychological effects on our nation, on her face in our schools and ourchildren and our families. So what im hoping this hearing will be about is take a look at the total recommendations of so many of these commissions that have been established afterwards, both state and federal government with the help of parents and families and have experienced these tragedies. I want to ask the question to what extent do these recommendations, these common sense obvious recommendation, to what extent have been limited if they are not and i know theyre not universally implemented, whats the holdup . What can we do to make sure we can take some of these obvious, relatively simple actions at least the first step. To not completely prevent these things from happening, at least mitigate casualties when one of these attacks occurs. So i think moving forward i want the result from this Committee Hearing to the is lets again, take a look at all the recommendations. But find out what is common, whatdo we agree on. Its something this committee does a good job on, theres allkinds of things gary is wrong about. But what this committee is good at doing as we identify a problem and say what do we agree on . What a common sense illusion that we agree on . Kind of set the division, the differences aside, they need to be brought up when its possible to do so. I want to really examine what are the most effective actions that we can take, that we agree on. What are the facets and the east to implement . That will be whats the most costeffective to and lets do those things. I go back to 9 11, i think the most effective and most effective action taken after 9 11 was we hired a new coptic door, we have all this other security theater and we spend billions but the most effective thing is we just hardened the cockpit door so lets make sure in schools where at least doing that. I really do because this committee doesnt have a whole lot of legislative jurisdiction but in this space there may be some we can consider so we want to do everything we can do as part of this committee in addition to holding this hearing to highlight the issue and examine these recommendations with ill turn it over to senator peters. Thank you mister chairman for holding this hearing today. This is an extremely important and difficult conversation. Theres no question that schools must be safe places for children to learn and to grow and every single life lost in a School Shooting is an unexplained speak a tragedy. As adults and as policymakers, our number one responsibility is to protect our children. And were failing. I want to recognize the many survivors that we have with us today, Ashley Mister acker and esther blair or joining us today as witnesses. Thank you for your courage and your action. I cant even begin to grasp the incomprehensible pain of losing a child to gun violence but i know that i must and we must honor the memory of those who are no longer with us by taking action to stop these preventable tragedies. Im grateful to you both and to sheriff gault terry and doctor temkin for helping the committee better understand how we can protect children in our schools and work towards ensuring that no other families have to endure the loss of a loved one to senseless violence in schools. Strengthening safety in our schools is not a partisan issue and i look forward to a productive discussion on the actions we can take to make cool campuses more secure and improve First Responders capability in an emergency and most importantly, stop theseshootings before they ever happen. Todays conversation will be about solutions. And we want to leave here with a clear roadmap for addressing this problem. But we cant forget exactly who we are doing this for. For alex . For luke . For the hundreds of children killed or injured in their schools, for the families, students, students and staff whose worlds have been aerobically changed by this violence. And for the millions of students who will be entering classrooms this fall, thank you for being here. I look forward to your testimony and your discussion and mister chairman, my office has received over 32 levels of support for our discussion today on a wide variety of topics and id like to enter those records into our official record without objection, ask for my written open statement to be entering into the record. We have a letter from senator rubio that will be entered into the record as well. I want to recognize congressman white is the congressman in parkland florida. We obviously offer all of you our condolences in and recognize how inadequate that is. We have a unique situation here where your former governor who established this commission and appointed and asked to many of you to be involved is here and senator scott would like to say a few words to introducemembers of the audience. I also asked him to read the list of those killed in the parkland shooting and then we will have a moment of silence after he does that so senator scott first i want to thank senator johnson and peters were doing this. What they said is really true in this committee, people do Work Together and work hard to get things done and theres a lot of tough issues to deal with up here. Theres probably not a more important issue than the safety of our kidsand our grandkids. I have six grandsons and i think about their safety all the time so i want to thank all thewitnesses for being here today. This is an easy discussion. It wasnt easy to deal with the aftermath but its nothing like what these families have gone through. February mark one Year Anniversary of the Marjorie Stallman douglas high School Shooting that claimed the lives of 17 innocent victims. Theres not a day that goes by i dont think about that day and the amazing people that were lost to the hands of the madman. One thing that happened since then is many of the families ive spent alot of time with , you can just everyday still feel their pain. Id like to thank the family students and loved ones of the victims here today. On, gina, phil and debbie. Thanks all of you and tony, thank you for being here. Lets go through a little background. Axis and alex, anybody thats got a copy of this, they just gave me a copy of this this morning but you can go and see the pictures of these kids and you can, i think in the last year and a half you get to know them by all the stories you hear so alex was 14 years old, heplayed trombone in the band at the school. He was very vocal in seeking changes at school and served on the high school Public Safety commission. Tom and ginas son luke was only 15. He was sweet like a man who love playing sports and his parents have been leading efforts to make change and gina was, when we signed the Marjorie Stallman Douglas High School Public Safety in the law, she was therewith me. Tony, if youll stand up so they can recognize you. Tonys daughter gina was working in the freshman at Marjorie Stallman douglas. She was a member of the schools winter barking, known to be a great dancer with an infectious mile to make friends everywhere she went. Tony is the president of daniel Parking Organization founded by the parents of these victims and i attended some of their funerals and your heart goes out to all of them and gina, i should have had tostand up. Gina, i should recognize you but gina is toms wife and theyre just a sweet family so that you for being here. Gina has become a good friend of my chief of staff. Phil, if you will stand up. Phils daughter carmen was a dedicated student who wanted to become a dedicated creature researcher and find a cure for a last, she was 18 years old. Phils wife abel and their family have been incredible activists nationwide, thank you for being here. Debbies husband chris was a loving father in the United States veteran, he sure as Athletic Director at Marjorie Stallman douglas made an impact on lives of so many of his students. His legacy lives on with the epic scholarship which helps further the education of studentathletes and this is a story about what tristan to run in a danger without any ability to do it, no weapon or anything to try to save thesekids, its remarkable so thanks for being here. Let me read off the rest of the names. Its always been hard. Alicia, scott eagle, martin dk, edward stewart, erin five, ginny guttenberg, here along and, Joaquin Bolivar , and ill tell you a story about iliana, i had met her family because after we had the hurricane irma, her brother who was just here the other day pass and he was going on his twoyear mission, they are mormons and his dad was working out in the Everglades City to clean up and i remember meeting them for this, metal pollock, Helena Ramsey and meadows dad , youve seen a lot on television. And then he or line. Every one of these families, its just a horrible story. Its just a wonderful emily numbers, these families lives have been changed forever. So theres no question we got to figure out how tochange this. A remarkable strength and dedication you have shown in the aftermath of such an unspeakable tragedy is inspiring. As weve seen many times, solution after tragedy unfortunately get lost in the politics but theres a lot of reasons why this happened i think were able to cut through that in florida and im hopeful we can continue to Work Together to make our schools taper. Gaultieri is somebody i met after i got elected in 2010 but the sheriff, he is very dedicated as a member of the insurance statewide Sheriffs Association and has been dedicated and getting good legislation path. What we did was to gather a group of right after it happened, happened on wednesday, by friday we had put together a group of people that worked together. One group of dedicated educators, one Mental Health, one Law Enforcement and the tuesday night we came up with what we thought we should do and by friday we made a proposal unfortunately we were in session so within three weeks we got not exactly what we all want to pass, we would have done something but we got good legislationpassed. Sheriff gaultieri, hes a greatfriend and a dedicated public servant. I dont know how you work the hours he does but he shown incredible leadership for our state when we needed it and its because of the like bob that we are at a 40 year low on our primary so he used brad as governor, youre supposed to brag as governor. We did 1. 7 million jobs, number one Higher Education were at a 40 year low in our crime rates. We Work Together to pass the Public Safety act with the goal of preventing the tragedy again. The goalis it never ever happens again. We established the commission to work to identify issues and they did an incredible job. Sheriff gaultieri led it but we had i think 15 people or so on it but max and ryan petty, another parents on the commission. And this commission did a good job and without that information and theyre still doing things that are going to have a positive impact so this i think what youre all going to hear today, youre going to hear about people that have gone above and beyond to change things unfortunately, you cant bring back these lives. But i think everyone of us, especially when we think about this with our children, grandchildren and we dont want this to happen again in our country and i think its every important that all of us take responsibility to do everything we can to make sure this doesnt happen again. I was disheartened by the report from the grand jury on the progress of the implementation. Of Safety Measures by certain florida schools. Its unbelievably disappointing when , he will talk about this, when we have talked about what we need to do and then you see people that for whatever reason dont take this seriously. They dont think its ever going to happen at their school. Im sending a letter to the school superintendent, Board Members and administrators demanding action. Im disappointed in response but im confident that when we talked about this a little bit at breakfast, were not there to fight and its going to happen longterm. Unfortunately all not all of us want to be here, can have something more important than what youre going to talk about but after i finish here i have togo to Armed Services for a mandatory meeting. So thank you for being here and thank you for your testimony and i think everybody, every senator up here tears deeply but this doesnt ever happen again. Peggy senator scott, it would be appropriate if we had a moment of silence in memory out of respect for those who have lost their lives and for those whose lives have always been forever altered by these tragedies. Thank you. It is the tradition of this committee to swear and witnesses so if you would raise your hand. Do you swear that the testimony you will get before this committee will be the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Senator scott said there are a lot of competing committee meetings, i know. Senator romney and others have to go in and out, dont take that as a sign of disrespect, its just this place doesnt work but our first witness is mister max schachter, max is the cofounder and ceo of state schools for alex, max has advocated for improved safety across the nation and the highest levels of government since his son alex was killed in marjorie solomon was high school every 14 2018. I was talking to max before the hearing and hes got his, i called it a rap sheet but if you see the list of his activities, since helost his son , its just unbelievable how much time and energy is devoted to this so max, i look forward to your testimony. Peggy senator, my name is max chapter, my son alex was one of 17 people brutally murdered marjorie solomon Douglas School last year. After i buried my son, my next priority was to make sure my other three children were safe in their schools. I traveled the country and came to realize that in all the hundred 39,000 k12 schools in this country, each principal has to now become an expert in door locks, Access Control, cameras, etc. It made no sense to me that each school had to go and reinvent the wheel. The idea that crystallized for me was the need to create National School Safety Best Practices at the federal level. Those best practices would be housed on a clearinghouse website so that all schools have a onestop shop for all the most relevant and important School Safety information. I was pleased to see this idea highlighted in trumps commission on School Safety report last year and i am extremely encouraged that the department of Homeland Security is moving forward to create this clearinghouse. In fact, they are convening their first meeting july 30 next week. We know that we cannot prevent hundred percent of these school mass murders that we know that we can absolutely mitigate a lot of the risk to students, teachers and staff when they do happen. Every school can do things today that can improve School Safety and many of these things are basics that cost little or no money. Chairman johnson, i really want to commend you for your commitment to focusing on Practical Solutions that can save lives right now and or shining a spotlight on that through this hearing that youre holding today. In my view, there are two main reasons the National School purity crisis has continued with no end in sight the first is that we do not implement lessons that we have been painfully learning for two decades and two, we are not being honest to parents and communities about the real situation with a key in our schools. On the first point, we do not implement Lessons Learned from dozens of incidents have tragically taken many, many lives. The state of virginia is a rare exception. After the Virginia Tech massacre, virginia and limited assessment teams and all of their schools to use the United States secret service is National Assessment centermodel and they have not had a School Shooting sense. That is why i support the eagles. Unfortunately, no other state besides florida has followed suit and implement it assessment teams and all their schools. And after columbine, all responding officers were required to rapidly deploy in parkland eight deputies waited outside for 11 minutes while children and staff were being slaughtered in their classrooms. In parkland, First Responder radios failed and were not interoperable, delaying help for victims. What teams had to resort to hand signals to avoid shooting each other because their radio failed and as a country we havent truly committed to solving the communication problems. We cant force all agencies use a single radio system that we can make it possible for them to communicate no matter which system theyre using. After sandy hook, each school should have trained their students and staff how to respond to active shooters. Sadly, many did not. During the 2017 2018 school year, marjorie solomon Douglas School did not hold a single code red drill that here so students and staff did not know what to do when the murderer started firing an ar 15 into classrooms and killing their classmates. No staff member called a code red for three minutes after the shooting had already started and by then, all 17 people were dead including my littlewhite alex. The second side reality which most people dont realize is schools are not being truthful about the violence on their campuses. For example for the year 2014 replacement team, marjorie solomon douglas reported zero bullying, zero harassment, zero trespassing incidents and many other heroes. Not just Broward County that isin accurately reporting the incident, this is pervasive across the country. The result is a false sense of security which leads to complacency and implementing School Safety best practices. On college campuses, the exposes financial these four inaccurate reporting of campus Crime Statistics in k12 there is no such requirement. The result is that when you go online to look at school ratings, many of them including marjorie summoned douglas and a rating x are important but if the children do not come home to their families and staff will come home, nothing else matters. A rating marjorie solomon douglas had nothing to do with safety of that institution. Theres no rules safety Rating System for informed parents and teachers of whether or not there school as implement best practices to prevent and mitigate the number of casualties during the next school attack. Schools should not be able to get a rating marjorie summoned but listed if they never held a code red drill for the entire school year. They should not be rewarded if they do not train their teachers and their staff what to do during an active assailant emergency. If a School Safety Rating System existed, it would influencechange nationwide. The car industrys Rating System has improved car safety and reduce fatalities. Before you buy a card to review their safety and crash test ratings but for parents, theres nothing. No way to know if your childs cool is or not. Its been 20 years since columbine and children continue to be murdered in their classrooms. We know the next school mass murder is already out there. The next that he will use is already out there. It is not a question of if, is a question of when. We know what can be done to prevent it and we know what must be done to mitigate the risks of more lives being lost. I hope this committee will help get us where we need to be. I thank you for your commitment mister chairman and senator peters. I lookforward to your questions. Emacs, our next witnesses mister tom bowyer. Tom serves as treasurer of stanley park language advocates for safety reforms, formed by the families of those killed marjorie solomon Douglas Highschool attack including tom who lost a son luke. Good morning chairman johnson, Ranking Member peters and members of the committee, thank you for having me here. My name is tom bowyer and im the chairman of the National Association of families for state schools. It was founded by the families of children and spouses murdered in the parklandschool massacre and im here today on behalf of our organization. We are fundamentally nonpartisan group. The safety of our kids and teachers is not apolitical issue. We are willing to work with anyone whose shares our goal for state schools and we appreciate your decision all this hearing today. Im here because i lost my youngest son luke on february 14 2018. He was one of the 71 apostles murdered Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. My son was one of the first to die. The police tell mehe felt the impact of the bullet before you heard the shots. One moment hes standing outside the classroom looking forward to the end of the school day andthe next moment hes on the floor unable to move and dying. Many times ive wondered what his last thoughts were. I think about my wife gina who gave birth to look 15 years earlier and who have to watch the casket close on her youngest son. This is my story, there are 16 others just like in parkland. The murder of our beloved spouses at school was devastating. Our families are forever changed, our community is forever changed. The trauma of that date wants all the survivors, unions, teachers and First Responders. Our experience in parkland has led us to conclude there is no single solution that can solve this problem. Thats what van wyck parkland advocate for three key goals securing the school campus, including Mental Health screening and support programs, and responsible firearms ownership. The first element of our platform is bringing people together around the idea of securing the school campus. Our schools need a clearinghouse affects practices they can use as a tool in our country the federal minimal School Safety standard is a single point of entry on the school campus. We also need to explore federal funding for School Security enhancements through natural infrastructure bills. The next element of our platform is Mental Health screening and support programs. We need funding to promote to assign intervention programs. More than two thirds of mask tutors are suicidal. Weneed congressional action , relaxed regulations in schools, Law Enforcement and Mental Health professionals share information. My sons killer was known to the school. Gaultieri serves as Vice President of the florida Sheriffs Association on the board of directors, major county sheriffs of america. 2018 governor rick scott appointed him to chair the Marjorie Stoneman douglas safety commission. Good morning mister chairman, excuse me, Ranking Member peters and members of the community. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today and share thoughts about tool safety. For the last 16 months ive chaired the Marjorie Stoneman douglas safety commission. We submitted a 500 page report to the governor and legislature regarding what happened on february 14 and made recommendations on how to improve pool safety. It is debatable whether the incident atStoneman Douglas was entirely avoidable but what is not debatable in my view based on the evidence is whether the harm could have been mitigated. Simply put, the shooting did not have to be as bad as it was. 34 people were shot and killed in three minutes 51 seconds. With 24 of those shot and killed in one minute 44 seconds on the first for a loan. Gaetz at the Stoneman Douglass campus were left unattended and teachers and staff lacked adequate communication infrastructure. In fact the shooter shot and or killed all but two of its victims before the first staff member on Stoneman Douglass campus called a code red to alert others of the act of shooting occurring that day. People simply did not know what to do or how to do it because there were no policies no drills and little to no training. Please keep in mind this was the state of School Security in Broward County florida the secondlargest School District and the Third Largest state 19 years after columbine and six years after sandy hook. As for Law Enforcement response schools sros stood by outside hiding in a place of personal safety while the shooter shot and or killed 10 people on the third floor. Dsro never went into the building that day indicated for 48 minutes before leaving the area. Several other burke county sheriffs deputy stood by outside the School Despite hearing shots and they too did not enter the school in an effort to save lives. Dsro and several deputies were fired as they should abandon dsro has been criminally charged for his inaction. We made improvements on School Safety but we have a ways to go through this much of the talk of the day some prevention which should be the goal the immediate emphasis must be on our mitigation and theres a difference between the two. Its a hard thing to say that it will happen again in the question is when question is when we are been most pressing question is whether we doing differently today to drive the different outcome that what happened at marjory Stoneman Douglas ice cool february 14, 2019 because we must have a its unacceptable. Today there is not full compliance with the laws of florida and best practices that make our schools safe and i dont believe that this is limited only to florida schools but i believe noncompliance with caused in part by complacency and an attitude that cant happen here. Remember we are 20 years postcolumbine. Where a county School District ground zero for this mass killing just passed its first ever active shooter response policy in february of 2019. It took more than a year after the stoneman dove was shooting for the Broward County School District to enact a policy and that is unacceptable. There has to be a sense of urgency and a media focus the main tenets of our mitigation and those are identifying the threat communicating the threat and reacting to the threat. All schools Must Immediately have a active shooter response policies and train their personnel to identify threats empower all personnel of the community have adequate mitigation infrastructure so all students and staff can receive messages of a threat and there must be regularly conducted drills so students and staff know how best to react to a threat. We cannot be here 20 years from now like we are today 20 years postcolumbine talking about the most basic concepts of School Safety that should have been implemented years ago. Most of not all of the strategies cost little to nothing to implement. The only required the will to ensure it happens and unfortunately that has not occurred acrosstheboard. There has to be accountability for those not immediately implementing the basic School Safety necessities read i encourage you to use your power and require the School District receiving federal funding to demonstrate compliance with certain basic and core safety components as a requirement for receiving federal money. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to question how we can do a better job of making sure what must be a daily prayer to this country that is her kids are safe as they can be in our nations schools. Parents have a right to expect that when they send their kids to school in the morning to come home alive in the afternoon and we need debate that expectation. Thank you. Some may think you share. Our final witness is dr. Deborah temkin director for child trends which he serves as a senior advisers to the federal System Centers devoted to Student Health and School Safety. Prior to her work dr. Temkin directed the initiative on bullying prevention. C chairman johnson Ranking Member peters and members of the committee thank you for holding this important hearing to identify ways to keep children safe in school but i can imagine the pain of losing a child. As a parent in addition to our research i share my commitment to ensuring that our schools are safe. The tragedies at parkland and elsewhere shock our collective system. We can and we must do more. Ive dedicated my career to identifying evidencebased guidance for School Health and safety of the network i have recommendations. First maintain the decades long trajectory of School Safety initiatives that encourage student communities to address the full spectrum of issues that contribute to School Violence through the research is clear keep students safe at school we must prioritize our overall wellbeing preventing School Violence requires an investment in building a positive school of government as well as honing schools and healthy relationships. Several federal investments were built upon this research and should showed significant improvement of School Safety measurements. The policies that support them are fundamentally shifted for making student loan as a party. This includes the outreach and feedback to include an indicator of School Quality and Student Success and find Student Success and academic enrichment Formula Grant Program through School Violence has gone down over the past 20 years. The percentage of ninth or 12th graders who carried a weapon on School Property decrease from 17 to just under 4 in 2017 rate for this group over the same time period the percentage of physical fights on School Property increased from 14 to 18. 5 . More difficult to ascertain a trend in School Shooting incidents in part because while devastating they are statistically rare occurrences. Although progress has been made is clearly much more we can do. No community should ever have the experience of School Shooting. Three movements are bringing us closer the school. First increased awareness of the prevalence of adverse child that experiences and their potential for trauma, second further integration of social promotional and academic learning and third enrichment of School Resources to integrate student worth support domestic and her condition is to limit strategies that harm students and committees. May seem logical that additional Law Enforcement would prevent a School Shooting at the research we have security measures are often designed to keep the bad guys out but history shows us the vast majority of School Shootings are perpetrated by current students at the school, students who know the security procedures as well as the blind spots. The effectiveness of schoolbased Law Enforcement Access Control metal detectors and other security measures in improving School Safety has not been well researched. We do know however that many schools that have experienced active shooter incidents over the past 20 years has security measures in place. Certain forms as a security may help that pose little risk to students. These include strategies such as identification procedures and basic lockdown drills which are different than active Shooter Drills emerging evidence shows more intensive security measures in schools reach unintended consequences including increased level of fears among students and staff decrease perceptions of School Safety increased in referral to the criminal Justice System for minor offenses and particularly for lowincome students reduced academic achievement. Active Shooter Drills are particularly concerning. These drills often used actors to portray School Shooter using realistic plastic olick. We do not know whether these drills work. In addition researchers and educators alike are raising concerns that such drills may traumatize the School Committee or desensitize students to the seriousness of an attack. We need to know much more about these intensive security measures before risking our childrens wellbeing. My final recommendation is to ensure a better mechanism to assess the impact of School Safety strategies. They are still much to learn about keeping schools safe. Research allows us to understand the finite resources used effectively and wehrum proof could be made. In fiscal year 20 teen funds were reallocated in a conference of School Safety initiative out of the National Institute of justice which was the only dedicated funding stream to support School Safety research. Without such research we will continue to debate the issues raised today. I will close with this come our children go to school to learn. When our children are afraid and when we tell them they should we afraid by installing metal detectors hiring Security Officers in requiring active Shooter Drills it becomes harder for them to learn. Keeping schools safe is not about keeping the bad guys out. Our childrens safety is paramount and that safety must start from within the school itself. To truly make schools safer must prioritize social emotional and academic support that prevents violence and help our kids to thrive. Thank you. Thank you dr. Temkin but im going to yield my question time to senator scott. Thank you and thank you all for being here. One person i want to recognize if he you would stand up. He lost his sister meadow who was 18 at the time and she died trying to save another student so thank you for being here. Sheriff gaultieri whats the most important take away from your initiative . I think it didnt have to be as bad as it was. The harm could have been mitigated if there wasnt complacency and people had done what they should have an and learned lessons from what has happened 20 years ago. The Law Enforcement response was an effective. When you have a district in a particular school that had done no drills, had done one minimal training people didnt know what to do or how to do it. I think its shocking to us as land cover and look at the facts and the evidence and there is still too much complacency and not enough being done. They say they take it seriously but they say the proof is in the pudding and the proof is in the actions, not what you say. To did this day theres not enough being done through when i appeared before the Broward County school board in february of this year and in the last week of february to wasnt until the week before that, took them a year to pass an active shooter policy prepare their districts in florida within the last couple months is still dont have active shooter response policies prevent districts that are not compliant with the law to have a safe School Officer on every campus any of school so dont have Threat Assessment Teams. The lack of the basic tenets is the most shocking and i would say appalling to me. Sheriff gaultieri we have 67 School Districts in florida and i dont know if every set status set up this way but every county has a collective school board and they have a lot of autonomy and half of them are elected superintendent and have far elected by the school board to give a lot of autonomy so it everything we work hard to get past implemented by the state has to be implemented locally so what is your experience so far and who is the best and whos the biggest disappointment in implementing just, forget what everybody is trying to do to come up with the right idiot just doing the things he said we had to do. Well you know there are some that are doing it well. I can tell you as an example and one that is doing it well and i just came from there before he came here this week which was pensacola and escambia county. I think they have stepped up in the superintendent burt gets it and they have implemented the right policies and procedures. We have other counties probably the ones that are most problematic as we sit here today where we are seeing the most voids as far as compliance would be in south florida Miamidade Broward palm beach and there are some others. Recently until a couple of months ago Orange County were not compliant with the requirements to have a safe School Officer on every campus. The legislation we passed required there be a Public Safety officer at every school so what were they doing next. If we provided funding for this. You provided it as the governor and the legislature provided 67 million. What the law said was that there has to be assigned to every charter elementary middle and High School Campuses safe School Officer. They interpreted the work assigned to mean that assigned a paper that they dont have to be there. This is the type of manipulation and disingenuous approach and its maddening. Its upsetting because what is the legislative body supposed to do . He pic words and clearly the intent was there be a good guy guy with a gun to safe School Officer in every campus say you had lawyers who were part of the problem and i say that as a lawyer because they are not doing a service to the people there representing when they interpret words and they go through these these imaginations and they say a sign can be interpreted to mean you dont have to have somebody there. Tell that to one of these parents who authorities have to knock on the door because they had one deputy for six campuses because they didnt follow the law. Its just not right and this is the type of attitude that has to change. Sheriff talk about the fact that if they had done, if they had done in active Shooter Drill at marjory Stoneman Douglas where white students have gone when they know theres a shooter in the realm and where did the students go . Unfortunately they have not identified any of the safe spaces or hard corners in classrooms. Simply the teachers in the staff didnt know what to do or how to do it and for those that did try and get the kids to those safe spaces are the hard corners in the classrooms they were full of stuff meaning bookshelves and desks and movable objects. Its a hard thing to say and in fact its a very hard thing to say but kids died on the line because they couldnt get into the hard corners because they were being pushed out by others because they were so full. There were two kids who were unable to get into one of those safe areas and they were hiding behind a tv set and filing cabinet at the other end of the classroom. Tv sets and filing cabinets dont stop ar15 realms. If they had been able to get no safe areas are hard corners this problem would have been mitigated and it would have been as bad to cause a shooter that day never went in to anyone classroom. He only shot people that he could see. He only shot people in the hallway so he when he went through the doors through the windows and doors and saw people he shot them. They run a hard corners because on the second for the shooter shooter was on the second floor for 41 seconds. He didnt shoot or kill anyone on the second floor because they had an opportunity to respond appropriately. What we teach works on the first floor 24 people were shot, the thirdfloor 10 people shocker killed in the sheriff so by the thirdfloor did they know there was a shooter and knew what was going on . So the thirdfloor initially treated it as a fire drill and when i met with some of your staff we show them some photos and if anybody sees the photos of the thirdfloor it was walltowall shouldertoshoulder kids because nobody communicated anything to them other than it was a fire drill and nobody communicated. The first floor they got caught off guard in the second floor they heard gunshots in the thirdfloor at the time he arrived on the second floor yet over 200 ar15. Wed be having a different discussion. Because of the lack of communication because of lack of training because of a lack of policies because of the lack of so much it was as bad as it is in it could have been worse. I know my time is up but whats frustrating is that there is a lot of whether the fbi and if you want to talk about the fbi in two instances before this happened. I was governor for eight years and i had five Mass Shootings and in every case the fbi had prior warning. As far as you know whos been held accountable. Not passing on this tip to the fbi to the hotline and not passing it on i guess the miami office . It you heard of anybody being held accountable . No. All they had to do was pass it on. Make one phonecall or send an email. Nothing happened to my understanding and no one has been held accountable. Its disgusting. How do we know if anything is changed to x. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Senator peters. Thank you for all of your testimony, powerful powerful testimony. Dr. Temkin in your testimonys stated School Shootings are at the extreme end of the continuum of violence or want to talk about some of the evidence behind that statement as we try to drill down on evidence and solutions here. What does the data tell us about who the perpetrators for School Shootings are likely to be . Unfortunately there is no one profile. This is actually coming directly from the fbi having examined several of the previous School Shooting incidents. Previous School Shooters have been popular and they have also been loners. School shooters have been female and male. We cant necessarily say there is any one particular profile thats going to lead to some and becoming a School Shooter but there certainly warning signs. Those include the individual as well as the toward School Violence. We know when there is increased levels of trust students are not likely to bring weapons to school and they are much more likely to report people to officials when there is a threat from one of their peers. This is why its so important for us to focus and im building a positive School Climate as a way of prevention. Let me be clear im not saying we should not invest in School Security measures but i think thats one part of a much broader effort to create safe schools and we need to make sure as we are implementing safe school measures you are not going to cause harm to our children. So are these perpetrators of School Shootings come are the outsiders or folks from within the school . The vast majority of School Shooters have come from within the school either current schools or former students. These are students who would very likely know exactly what the school is doing with School Security measures and if they are determined to do something at school probably would find a way around that. Thats why its so important for us to focus on prevention as well as our schools. If they know the Safety Measures or they may know the drills is what you are saying then how do we design the system and what would be a recommendation . You think we absolutely need to continue doing things to help ensure the safety of the school but we have to look at the root causes of violence the violence. And to help students identify challenges and provide support. Thats the theory behind threat assessment which says when theres a viable threat waiting to identify what the challenges are and find whats going to prevent the students from carrying out that threat. Mr. Schachter at like to acknowledge your vision and your worker in the establishment of federal clearinghouse for best practices that will benefit all all schools and you talked a great deal about that in her Opening Statement i appreciate that. The Department Home security along with federal partners will look at the support in the next few months hopefully sooner rather than later but my question is what are you specifically watching for is the dh just clearinghouse and are there specific aspects that you believe are most critical for us to use as a tool and you are hoping to see and best practices . On july 30, it will be our first meeting and we are inviting over three dozen different stakeholders from all different aspects Mental Health, Law Enforcement, superintendents , all the stakeholders who need to be at the table so we can sit down and come up with National School Safety Best Practices. There are Commonsense Solutions that Lessons Learned that came out of columbine sandy hook and now parkland that need to be implemented. So if we have are pretty agreeing im hoping that once we establish these best practices it will be put up on a federal web site and that will be implemented through all states and into School Districts across the country. Thats my main concern is that we need ensure that the School Districts adopt these best practices as soon as possible. We cannot let another day go by where Lessons Learned it would save and mitigate lives and prevent school tragedies dont get implemented. And hopefully once we have these best practices they will be tied to the grant dollars. Thats a major problem now. To give you an example Broward County got a half a Million Dollars to implement analytic cameras last year and they didnt even have a formal act of assailant response policy. In the marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety commission that im on we developed two years so tier one would a lowcost and nocost measures that every school can implement no matter if its a school in iowa or school in miami. They should implement those in tears two, three and forward the more expensive and longerterm implementation. The school should not be implementing a tear for strategy. In other words analytic cameras if they havent done the basics, if they have not installed a formal response policy once we have those best practices they need to be tied to the grant dollars to ensure compliance. Thank you. In your testimony you discuss the role that the National Threat Assessment Center is played in a research used by Threat Assessment Teams and mr. Schachter you discuss that as well. I want to thank you for your service and mr. Schachter as well pay what worlds should Threat Assessment Teams play in the overall landscape as you look at this . I think its a pretty central role. It is one of the prevention measures. In our situation the shooter had around 69 disciplinary reactions with the school. 21 calls from police, numerous sessions with local Mental Health agency. I cant help but think if months or years before somebody had done a threat assessment on the shooter but someone may still be here. Think its important to step in to try to help these individuals but also if you cant, know who they are and deal with them appropriately. You mentioned it as well. Would you like to add anything . The Threat Assessment Team. Absolutely. Its critical. We have identified a major with the information silos. You have this file an individual from age three that had a tremendous amount of disciplinary action inside the school and the new head Law Enforcement interaction. These are two silos that were never connected so the Threat Assessment Team that were instituted after the attack and now after florida are to be to sit down and be proud of, not reactive. I would recommend Threat Assessment Teams in every state in every school. They will save lives so thats why i support reauthorizing the National Threat Assessment Center inside secret service and also as well. Senator hassan. Thank you for attention to School Safety and thank you all for taking the time to speak with us and to help ensure that our children are protected as we make our schools safer. A special thank you to mr. Mr. Schachter and mr. Hoyer for your tireless efforts to protect our children and to all of the other family members who are here today who have lost their loved ones i thank you as well for being here and for adding your voice is and your presence in your witness to this issue. Mr. Schachter and like to start with the question to you. I share your view that we need to acknowledge the School Shootings pose a very real threat that impacts communities nationwide and we need to focus on what we can do to protect students and prepare them for the unimaginable. I became governor of New Hampshire shortly after the horror of the sandy hook shooting. We took action. The state department of safety expanded the number of School Safety initiatives including a statewide institute of School Emergency notification systems to improve security assessments for schools and to improve information sharing between schools and First Responders. The notification system reduced Law Enforcement response im allowing School Computer to connect rackley was dispatched to notify Law Enforcement officers during an emergency. The state also worked for schools to conduct security assessments to identify gaps that could be addressed. Mr. Schachter i know youve thought about some of this today but in your work have you found these kinds of measures are important in ensuring that schools and local Law Enforcement are more prepared in case of an emergency . Senator you are 100 correct. Unfortunately in our commission we did an analysis 20 years of active shooters and what we found was the majority of the shootings are over 45 minutes. The sheriff talked about in three minutes and 51 seconds everyone was dead. Unfortunately even though our Law Enforcement do their best to try to get to the scene they arent going to get there in time. Even if the sro on campus was a courageous individual which he was was not, it still took them one minute and 44 seconds to get to the front of that building. By the time it happened 24 children and staff were already shot and or killed. Law enforcement is not going to get there in time and thats why an immediate notification of Law Enforcement is critical and as we look at the save the school in american indiana each teacher wears a on their neck so a keyfile tells Law Enforcement exactly was happening and Law Enforcement has access to the cameras which Broward County refused to give Law Enforcement. Law enforcement did not have access to his cameras inside the school prior to indiana once they hit the button and it depressed Law Enforcement can look inside their schools see exactly where the School Shooters and has live actionable intelligence who knows where to go where to send the officers and stealthy attack as soon as possible. The other critical piece we need to continue to work on is the closest available Law Enforcement officer and it doesnt matter whether its a county sheriff or a Municipal Office or for a state trooper. The fact is whoever is closest needs to be able to get that information and respond. Thank you again for your work and i look forward to continuing to work with you on all the witnesses. Mr. Hoyer is you have discussed we need to focus as well on prevention efforts. Prevention includes increasing School Safety but also recognizing the role of Mental Health and making sure individuals who exhibit behaviors that are a threat to themselves or others do not have access to firearms and other deadly weapons. This is one of the reasons ive been a strong proponent of expanding extreme Risk Reduction orders also called red flag laws which allow for restraining orders to restrict access to firearms when theres evidence individuals are planning to harm themselves or others. To do this effectively and to make sure students know where to report suspicious activity and how it can help. Mr. Hoyer and your association of families for safe schools what have you found to be best practices for building a comprehensive prevention approach that ensures students experiencing a Mental Health crisis receive the help they need and are kept as safe as possible . It starts with something pretty simple. One of the things where advocating for is suicide prevention. There are proven offtheshelf out there. Columbia protocol is one. A fairly simple one card, six questions. Does tozzi the question and tells you how to respond to the answer. It can be from i want to pat you on the back or sit with him until theres help. It empowers family members asked the questions and get people to seek help. Where advocating a funding and promotion of those are the proven programs. Our friends the sandy hook had a program in these programs have existed for a while. The one at columbia protocol saw 22 reduction in suicides. I just think starting there, starting with something simple and easy to implement would be a first step to implementing an overall a program which eventually will have to include Mental Health, talking with the schools and possibly the police over the threat assessment we were just talking about. Thank you. Dr. Temkin i wanted to touch on a couple of points that i know you have made. Intervention is critical as we examine how to balance student safety. I am particularly concerned with trauma experienced by students and teachers during a Shooter Training and the potential for disproportionate impact on students of color in students who experience disabilities. Can you share the concerns you have with active Shooter Drill somehow some School Hardening efforts could result in disproportionate impact on certain students and obviously we have to balance all of these issues and well want to make our schools safe but again if you can help us understand what those best practices look like and how we could avoid trauma to students that would be really helpful. Absolutely and to be clear there havent been in evaluations of many of these active Shooter Drills that are called multioption or may have been referred to as alec. These drills can often be very realistic such that teachers have reported which without rigorous evaluations are the best we have at the moment that kids are traumatized. Seeing a school may shot by plastic lids. They say this is more traumatizing. In terms of disparities we have to be careful in thinking about staffing as well as the impact of staffing so particularly when it comes to School Resource officers. We know that School Resource officer when they are present and involved in discipline that school will drive up expulsion and criminal justice referrals for minor nonviolent offenses. We know that there is expensive disparity verb both kids with disabilities and students of color in receiving such information. To be careful when we are recommending these that we consider these unintended consequences. Thank you very much and thank you all for your testimony. Senator rosen. Said thank you mr. Chairman and Ranking Member peters. I want to thank senator scott for his work in bringing you here today and i think about how you must feel as parents. Community members students parents children and grandchildren. The impact at what you experience on a personal level has an impact on all of us and i never want to imagine what you have gone through. Never want another family to go through what any of these families are going through and i hope sincerely that we can work on honoring the loss of their most precious, precious loved ones by our actions in the future. And so i agree with the panel that we have to emphasize multimodal approaches to address this issue. Its not just one thing, its many things because each incident is going to be different. Schools have to foster safe and supportive learning environment for all students. We have to have an adequate number of schoolbased Mental Health professionals to reach students in crisis, suicidal, angry whatever that is pretty cant learn if you dont feel safe for the other students save may be scared of students who have issues. The Nevada Association of School Psychologists a recommend a ratio of one psychologist for every 500 to 700 students. Nevada we have one for every 3000 students. Its a ticking time bomb. The Nevada Association has worked with the School Psychologist with their state legislature. We passed recently senate bill 89 that requires her state board of education to develop recommendations for ratios of pupils specializing in counselor or psychologist social workers nurses and to develop strategic plans to achieve those ratios. Im going to ask in a letter from the nevada School Psychologists be entered into the record. Without objection. Thank you. So dr. Temkin thinking about this multimodal approach i have a twopart question. How do you think schools can work to identify students needing more intensive intervention to ensure they receive the appropriate attention before god forbid at tragedy can happen and can you speak a little bit to the necessity of federal support through guidance and funding to support these efforts because thats what we can do. Absolutely. In terms of identifying students i subscribe to Public Health law. Universal approaches like prevention programs can reach 80 of our students but about 15 probably need more intensive support and 5 really need targeted intervention. When wins it to this multitiered systems of support we can actually help identify those students through Data Collection bringing in teams that are not just Law Enforcement of Mental Health teachers to understand challenges. One thing i want to flag about threat assessment is its not just about eliminating a threat. Its really grounded in support. Its grounded in lets find a way to help the students so that they can succeed not just prevent a tragedy. In terms of federal support of a scene the course of the last 20 years starting with response to columbine a series of investments or federal government is made in School Safety that have really focused on prevention. The Safe Schools Healthy Students Initiative support a grad program in 2010. These really help schools and we saw significant reduction in School Safety and School Violence indicators as a result but they are very limited. We hope to see the results of what comes from the every students succeed at that we have invested in title for funding. The Grant Program covers a whole host of things not just School Violence prevention. One schools are deciding what to use the funding for there may not be enough in their periods federal supporting guidance would best he prioritizes very important. Can you speak more about National Guidelines and standards for School Staffing and the evidence behind needing to specialize staff . Absolutely. We know that its not just and underrepresentation of support personnel. Its a disparate representation so we know the majority of black schools are more likely to have a resource School Officers and a Mental Health professional. This is problematic again as i mentioned. School Research Officers can perpetuate so when your only research as a School Resource officer not a Mental Health professional we have to balance their investments in School Resource officers was school Mental Health professionals. We need to increase the number of Mental Health professionals across the state of florida suppose. She talked about this trauma and students just going through these drills. Its for things especially if you have an Elementary School and preschoolers are having drills. The impact of that is great but god forbid there is a tragedy. What is the impact of this trauma Going Forward on the students and the teachers and the people who remain who have to continue to maybe not go back to that school but have to go back to some school, go back to their profession . How do we support people who have been through a horrific event like this . We need to invest in tom informed approaches and that means acknowledging drama and find individualist ways to help support efforts. There is no onesizefitsall model. Its going to depend on the community as well as the particular individual. Not everyone responds to trauma the same way. You talk a lot about adverse childhood experiences. Not every child of the childhood experience is going to experience drama in we have to be careful friends is where doing screenings that we are not labeling a child to experience something hard in their life as someone has damage. We have to really compare each individual situation. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony and i think an approach to Mental Health and School Safety is in hard and soft ways is the way they went forward. My time is up. Thank you. Senate senator russ and i want to start with something that really surprised me here. In the school in parkland there wasnt drone access. I visit schools all the time and theres only one point of entry. Its also true of most businesses so is that common in florida . Was that not implemented . I as my colleagues. You have one point of entry in your schools . Sheriff, can you comment on that . Its very inconsistent and single points of entry on campuses are not acrosstheboard paid to give an idea its also how its implemented. The Stillman Douglass campus to campus was fenced but they opened the gates for arrival time at 530 clock in the morning for a 7 40 school start time. The open the gates in the afternoon at 215 42 40 dismissal and when the gates were opened they were unsteadily asks during the investigation, why . Is just the way we have always done it. Why bother having close and lock gates because his dr. Temkin achieves absolute right there have been 46 targeted tax and 43 were done by insiders at 94 . In this situation the shooter exploited it. He knew the gate was going to be open. He arrived at 2 19 p. M. The gate was open at 2 15 so its inconsistent 15 00 so its and consistently narragansett darent staff to have somebody standing there that has the adequate communication device to alert others its all useless. I say its inconsistent. We are making progress in its Getting Better in some places. Control of entry would be a tier 1 action, correct . It depends. In florida marjory Stoneman Douglas is a very large campus. There are 13 buildings and a lot of the schools around the country in one building its much easier to have a single point of entry, two of the visitor vestibule or a mantrap. I brought this up senators temkin just basic school size. We have these Massive School sizes versus going back to single use schoolhouses and im not suggesting we go back to a single house schools although there are some that are moving that way. Think these Massive Schools are dehumanizing in many respects. Its pretty easy to understand how kids get lost in the bullying and that type of thing. Can you comment on large school sizes and is that part of the solution to start going toward smaller schools against . It certainly could be pretty we should definitely do more research into that. From what ive seen there isnt necessarily a significant difference in the rates of violence because it depends on the investment each school is making on safety and School Climate when it comes to laying. As you mentioned we know theres not a correlation between school size and rates of bullying. I want to go back to parkland. That perpetrator and how wellknown his problems were. Just wasnt communicated in tom in your testimony you talked about relaxation clarification for hipaa but federal privacy act. The sheriff was that part of the problem here . That those federal laws prevent information or was it just negligence or to what extent is that both . The accommodation . Fervor has been around for 40 years and it hasnt been updated. I think theres a lot of room and opportunity to opt date some of that so there can be better information sharing. Hipaa is of course more recently enacted but i will say this as far as both of those laws are concerned they are overly applied by the people who are charged with interpreting them and applying them in exceptions are not as understood as they need to be. There is a lot of room to do more training to have more effective can indication so those dots can be connected. There was discussion about behavioral threat assessment. The haverhill threaded testament teams are only as good as the information they receive. They are receiving comprehensive information is going to tell the whole story. That information sharing and having the laws that allow that are vitally important. In our system of justice innocent until Proven Guilty is a bedrock of principle so its an issue if you are not guilty yet. And it isnt so much its true they are not guilty but there are things that can be done. The behavioral Threat Assessment Teams i would take it a step further a step differently in the threat assessment process. If we wait until we have threats we are waiting too long. We need to get it back here where there are behavioral indicators of concern and we need to catch it before it manifests as a threat. One of the places that is lacking is care formation. Many of these kids that we see are under multiple treatment plants. There needs to be more Case Management of coordinating care to catch it earlier. Again it comes back to identifying the threat in doing something about it. There was a campus monitor the saw the shooter is person at the school. He saw the shooter walked through the gate on saturday and it took the shooter one minute and 30 seconds to walk through the gate where he walked and where was unlike. He identified it and said to himself thats crazy boy and hes carrying a rifle back. He did nothing about it. He did nothing about it so this is where the importance of our mitigation is in being able to write in i and identify the threats others can react to. Fit on a hot identify it theres nothing to communicate. We have them on tape sighing he saw crazy boy carrying a rifle back. Tina was a rifle and he did nothing about it. He wasnt communicated and people could react to. The combination of things we have to get to. I want to followup on what senator scott was saying in terms of the School Safety officers. I want to know more about this. First of all are they supposed to be armed and former Law Enforcement or former military . The requirement in floridas not every charter Elementary School campus there be a safe School Officer. Safe School Officer can be as School Officer. Somebody that goes through a rigorous background screening process and rigorous training and a person on campus who is authorized under law to thwart that assailant if then. The guardian said could be School Employees who perform it as collateral responsibility so it could be the Athletic Director. Could be the counselor at the prince of bull work could be somebody that is dedicated just for that role. If the state allocated money what happened to the money . What was a use for if it wasnt used for safe School Officer . It still sitting there because it was in last years budget is 6,067,000,000 nonrecurring funds and this year they read the legislature rolled it over again. The 67 million allocated originally there is probably at least 50 million of them that and probably more still sitting there thats available to implement the guardian program. The school didnt reallocated to Something Else . Was their resistance to having an armed individual . Was there that political argument there . Yes in the resistance was to the guardians. Too many of the School Boards and School Superintendents wanted but they cant have. They wanted only cops in the reality of it is they cant have them. First and foremost Law Enforcement a day when the most pressing challenges we have is recruitment and retention. The state of florida law today there are 1500 openings for Police Officers. Their 4000 schools in the state of florida and only half of them have cops. Where are we going to get 3500 cops . It doesnt work so you have to use alternatives and it comes down to what can you live with . The guardians provide a good alternative. The problem was they dont like it so they didnt want it so this was an Unfunded Mandate flag for which it wasnt. They just arent going to do it and thats where we are. By the way we have a shortage of Mental Health subordinates. Sheriff gaultieri the other thing that has been highlighted in the afteraction report was the problems with the Communications Systems and interoperability. These are not new. What we have heard about them across all sorts of Law Enforcement agencies now but obviously this is absolutely critical because its a matter of life and death. The quicker you get to folks and kim communicate the quicker you can coordinate activities. My question is what can we be doing today to help that indication system or invest in syndication systems and coordinate it . What action shall we be thinking about doing in our committee to deal with that problem and agencies across the country . Two issues. One would be ensuring there is radio interoperability which means all Police Officers and deputy sheriffs and Law Enforcement can speak to each other. I was not the case in parkland. The Coral Springs parkland in the south end of the stomach douglas campus is this a lime in parkland and Coral Springs. The Coral Springs and parkland could not communicate. They didnt have each others radio channels installed on their radios and they relied on the system of catching the two channels but you cant patch that which you dont have. Nobody installed the Coral Springs channels in the Broward County console so you couldnt patch it. You have two totally separate operations. Thats unacceptable obviously in those types of things can be fixed and they need to be fixed but there needs to be complete interoperability. Second is the 911 centers. Way too many counties in florida and across the country have multiple 911 centers in their counties. Most people think and they are wrong that when you call 911 the person that is answering your call is going to be a looked at dispatch over you. That is not true and that was not the case the situation. The first girl who called 911 on the first floor, her 911 call was answered by the Coral Springs Police Department because they set it up that 911 calls the parkland and to the Coral Springs 911 center not the Broward Sheriffs Office 911 centers of that first called the cayman was answered in Coral Springs. The call taker waited 28 seconds before he then transferred it over to the Broward County Sheriffs Office. It took 57 seconds to process the call of the Broward County Sheriffs Office where the story had to be told again and that it was one minute and 24 seconds before the first dispatcher put voice to radio to dispatch the first Law Enforcement officer. One minute and 24 seconds. On the first 424 people were shot in one minute and 44. As soon as somebody called 911 that call needs to go out immediately rid seconds matter and the irony here is that when finally the dispatcher Coral Springs officer arrived in 19 seconds. If the workflow had been set up differently maybe some would have gotten there earlier and they could have helped. Dr. Temkin my state of michigan is a state rich in diversity including folks in rural areas and urban areas and with various and ethnic backgrounds. There is no onesizefitsall approach to School Safety and we need to be thinking about that as we look at putting together national policies. My question to you are what are some of the unintended consequences we should be aware of when discussing school Safety Measures that all at the same across very Diverse Communities . I think its important that we recognize it cant be a onesizefitsall solution. I can say the high school in arizona wasnt laid out as the traditional school. We have multiple building something similar to marjory stoneman. The security measures that they would have taken to secure the school would have been very different than the schools here in d. C. Which are largely held in a single building. We have to not restrict the solutions that we can give schools and we also need to recognize that every contact is different. In our rural areas may take even longer than the sheriff has mentioned for a Police Officer to reach a campus and we have to recognize that and developing whatever recommendation we give the schools. Thank you. Question i have, how do we create a sense of urgency that exists right now in florida after these tragedies . How do we find champions in states whether tragedies have already occurred of people like tom and maxwell come other families involved here. How do we do that . Will still need within the state, those. We tried to do that champion in wisconsin also. You still need people there fulltime driving that process. Is there any suggestions . Absolutely. Its the mindset that needs to change. That wont happen here. My school are safe. You have that mindset that prevents you from having a security mindset, the principal at marjory Stoneman Douglas when he was interviewed and asked, if there was a threat, you expect to know about it . His answer was no. Disinterested and uninvolved in the process and security of his campus. That needs to change and its not an easy answer. I think part of the way we do that is by having that School Safety Rating System to show the public whether or not your school is safe. Right now, theres no way for a parent to go online, to see if their school is safe. If we can take that information to the public, i think it would put nationwide pressure on schools to implement these practices. I think that is one of the major ways. Its the next practices because as we travel around schools, they ask us what can i do . Show me where to go. They will develop those best practices and they will be up on School Safety. Gov very charlotte. I want to talk about your best practices. Scott used the words, things we had to do. What is the criteria you are setting . Setting those tiered levels. You have multiple criteria, no cost, low cost . People agree on it most effectively . Would you use as your criteria . Lowcost, no cost, our response policy, not talking about implementing massive amounts of technology and it would cost a lot of money and be a very short time to implement. Also, another example is walking doors. You lock your door when you leave your house. Every teacher should teach with the walked your. Tier four would be long time implement and very costly. Implementing those at marjory Stoneman Douglas commission, later that house out, i think the clearinghouse will be doing that as well. I saw recommendations from your commissioner, from sandy hook, columbine, federal commission and they said it for me, all the recommendations which commission was recommendation which, a lot of commonality of differences. There were a lot of recommendations. There were things that every school can do, no matter if youre in indiana, indiana, miami, every school should be doing the snow cost, low cost things. Thats what i appreciate about the schools. The priority in terms of what we need to do, national clearinghouse. Requires National Government to be that clearinghouse and highlighted and legislation are to be creating that pressure so it is driven at a local level. You mentioned indiana, i know ive met with so many on this issue, kind of an exhibit one of a hardened school, 300,000. Tell me more about that. The reason there was such a high cost, have bulletproof glass, obviously that is not scalable but the things that that school does do, he would never know that it has security. It does not look like it at all. He wouldnt even notice. They dont even have metal detectors. It has that immediate notification and they practice because if you dont train your teachers and staff, you see what happens, like my son was murdered. Thats what happens if you dont drill our train, when i went to that school, i arranged a private tour right after the tragedy in parkland. We talked to teachers, children in that school, they felt safer, knowing they knew what to do in an emergency. They know if there is an active shooter, they know where to go in that classroom and another tier one measure would be, they have a red line in that classroom, in the corner, every child knows where to go, out of the sight line of that window. Alex was murdered because the murderer targeted him through that window. The kids on the second floor, a lot of them were in those corners. Thats another thing, low cost, no cost. The training is very important. Training for Law Enforcement officers, in the shooting, the active Shooter Training that Law Enforcement had, the only trained they only trained every three years. Training what it was Law Enforcement or staff in children, it is muscle memory. These are life skills. We are not in kansas anymore. This is happening around our country. Children and staff need to be trained, whether they are in a theater or school, they need to be equipped to protect themselves. Did you see to others testimonies before today . Negative. You mentioned fire drills, ive kind of got to scratch my head. You have any problems in terms of what max was talking about . Crawl under our desks, people feel traumatized by that. We do need to prepare, you see any problem . I agree we need to prepare. I think its the way we frame the training as well as the training we do. I think we have to be careful that it doesnt become so routine that when an incident unfortunately happens, students dont feel complacent. That is just another drill. That is a risk of over doing some of these things. I think we have to make it, we are not doing it because thats where kids get scared. When they think the community they are in the teachers around will on them. They become scared. I think there has to be that balance. I see a similarity in terms of what we are dealing with, prices at the border, the specific problem in here now, oftentimes a solution, which by the way is a solution, if we could develop those countries, we could get rid of the drug cartels, and the extortion racket and provide opportunity. Its a very longterm solution. With all respect, a lot of things youre talking about, Mental Health, treatment, we dont have enough Mental Health practitioners now. How do we separate out, how do we make sure that the longer Term Solutions which are valid and we all love to do them, dont in the way of the tier one, the things we must do right now. Its going to be that longterm viewpoint, its going to be a controversial proposal as well. They dont get locked up or included in these things. The main issue is we have to balance what we do to defend our schools with what we are doing to prevent School Violence. The visible, easy Security System and really engaging the systematic prevention that are really necessary. We have both. I am a big proponent of the simple. What im asking, i hate to give you a homework assignment but ive seen recommendation, i know you have done the tearing but work with this committee to design the most simple the most effective piece of legislation under our intersection i grab peoples attention, create that sense of urgency, i have the government do what it can do so we are actually taking action as opposed to what often happens, we just need more funding. So that every school and community and every state is implementing at least tier one. If we can get their attention on that, you take that first step, the continues improvement. Make that incremental improvement, that first step. You can get peoples attention and look at your two and three and four without arguing over the more controversial things. One final question i have, i do want to address controversial issues. Read flight laws, was always frustrated me about micro troll, i do think theres Common Ground but what happens is its all mine or all mine. It seems to make sense to me that you want to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. More people with serious Mental Health issues. Process, theres a real serious concern. But what do you do . How you come together . The gun control debate. How do we get by that . I probably shouldnt have brought it up but i was also advised not to have this hearing. Legislation last year passed in order law, it is extremely effective. It has a lot of process and due process built into it. A final hearing has to be held within 14 days. Finally, we have authority when we do take somebody into custody. Up until last year, we didnt have the authority, when we take somebody into custody because they threatened somebody with a firearm, we couldnt seize the firearm. We can now. They also have a lot of process built into it so its being done with the right people, its not just acrosstheboard. Its easier to pass that way, wasnt designed pretty well . Have you been in a state where you didnt have that . It was controversial. How controversial . Moderate to very controversial. There had to be a lot of discussions and negotiations. Getting it to a place where we could get something through. Its not perfect but its better than where we work. Went to add this, i think there are a number of things that can be done across the board that are low cost, no cost. Probably the best thing is to set minimums on what should be done but recognizing we are very diverse country, and we tell and you tell, tell them what to do but not necessarily how to do it. Like with drills, you have to have drills but dont get into the specifics of it. They need to be ageappropriate. You have to have an active shooter response policy. If we could get to a place where every School District in this country at five, six, seven basic core Security Companies in place, we would be much further ahead than where we are. We need to make it the noncontroversial things. Im a big advocate of telling them here are the five, six or maybe even ten things i dont want to create mandates but i do realize the cant play a role but i want to be constructive. Do you have anything further to add . Ill give you one last chan chance. If theres something you want to add to this, not necessarily what we just talked about. Theres a few points that i think are really important. What is our definition of safety . If our definition is only about preventing School Shootings, i think security is clearly the way we want to go but if we want our kids to feel safe in school, to be protected against all School Violence ranging from bullying on up, we have to do more than just security. We have to make sure we are thinking more broadly. We have to think about School Climate. We know several states are moving toward their plans, incorporating climate surveys these are movements i think could be helpful but a much broader view. I think the other thing is, we need things that are already happening, one case i want to make sure, there are some already in existence that are from the federal government. I would encourage you to look at them and see what can be improved. This website has many of the practices and programs available around School Safety and evaluations including those that have shown to both not work and potential unintended consequences. We have to consider that. Theres Technical Assistance of the department of education quitting readiness and management which does a lot of this work as well. I encourage as you look at this, to look at what is already in existence. I would say schools that dont get kids shot in them. I appreciate this opportunity. Letting people know we still have a lot of work to do. Some cases it needs to move, people need to know its going to happen again. We have to do things different. I appreciate the opportunity. I like to restate, how much we believe this is a complex problem. A lot of School Safety lies outside the school before the shooting ever happens. Mental health is the first layer we try to address. They fall through the crooks there. We have to keep it out of there hands. They fall through the crooks, we have to have schools that are safe. Its a much broader problem than just one thing. I want to address the mindset for the last 20 years that School Safety is a local issue and not really federal government, shouldnt have a lot to do with that. In my opinion, schools failed to protect our children since columbine when those National Crises happen, i think the federal government has a larger goal to take. I think they should take a larger role in protecting its schools and children and as far as federal government, they have power of the first. Most schools receive money in some form or fashion from the federal government, many Grant Programs in the department of justice that give out money to schools. As we develop these best practices and tier one bubbles, i would advocate that no school gets money a mess they permit these tier one lowcost, nocost measures. That would move the needle. Colorado signed a law 20 years post parkland post columbine to lock doors when they teach. Its taken 20 years for that to happen. Florida as well is recommending that. That needs to be nationwide. Were trying to move the needle here to protect our children. I voice been impressed with your basic common sense and the way you take a tragedy and turned into a practical approach. I appreciate that. Our condolences. Thank you for participating. This remains open. This hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspans washington journal, live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, Washington Examiner immigration reporter discusses progress in the usmexico border wall. Then a look at the agenda as a new prime minister. The potential impact on u. S. You okay relations. Rolling stone Senior Writer stephen talks about his piece all american despair. Looking at the suicide particularly in the western u. S. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal, live seven eastern saturday morning. He talks about experiences of Sexual Assault throughout her life. Including an alleged assault by donald trump in mid 1990s. They take what they want. Thats how this is, hes more like the great kennedy, clinton, jefferson. A mark of the leader in many peoples eyes to see them taking what they want. Then 9 00 p. M. From greenup best, the returning conference in las vegas, we feature over john and his book, the warm uncut. 45 of the countries in the world dont report firearm homicide data. The countries that dont report this data the countries that have the highest homicide rates. On sunday, coverage continues. Talking about his book the meaning. We allowed Public Discourse and political activity. To sink to the level where we dont demand requisite amount of understanding, education, civility and professionalism in what we do with and of our elected officials. What happens then is those important mechanisms such as impeachment are devalued. Then nine eastern on afterwards in his new book, the fifth domain, george w. Bush Administration Special advisor for Cyber Security talks about how to make it less dangerous. There are appropriations in america that are pretty secure. Their formidable to the tax, no. They are resilient to it. Can someone penetrate their network . Im sure, theres no perimeter anymore. But can i do real damage to the companies . No. Work watch booktv every weekend. Senate begins a very busy week. Three votes monday on whether to override the president vetoes, resolutions walking u. S. Armed sales to saudi