Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUTHERFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives has a chance to take an important first step towards keeping our students and our teachers safe by passing the STOP School Violence Act.

This bill is the result of bipartisan work of Representative Hal Rogers, Representative Ted Deutch, and also Representative Kilmer. We also incorporated, as we mentioned earlier, excellent ideas and key elements from legislation by Chairwoman Granger, Representatives Susan Brooks, Chabot, Rodney Davis, Messer, and Bost. I want to thank all of them for their work and commitment to this very important issue.

I would also like to recognize in a very special way the dedication and passion of the parents and members of Sandy Hook Promise, who have been integral to us moving this bill forward. I really cannot say enough about that organization.

As a career law enforcement officer and sheriff for 12 years in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, I know firsthand the importance of communities working together to spot early warning signs of violence.

This is why this bill invests in early intervention and prevention programs in our local schools, so that our communities and law enforcement can be partners in preventing these horrific acts from occurring.

We need to give students, teachers, and law enforcement the tools and training they need to identify warning signs and to know who to contact, and provide them an anonymous tip source to provide that information.

Now, I should point out here that those receiving the tips, the agencies that are charged with providing due process, are the ones who should provide due process here, not the tipster, not the child who may be calling in to talk about an issue that he thinks is important to law enforcement.

That is their responsibility to provide due process to the individuals involved.

This bill also gives funding for physical enhancements to help harden the target on our school campuses. I know from my law enforcement experience that security does require a multilayered approach. Our bill supports one very important layer of security for our schools. There is still much more work to be done, but the best way to keep our students and teachers safe is to give them the tools and the training to recognize those warning signs to prevent violence from ever entering our school grounds. This bill aims to do just that, Mr. Speaker.

As I used to tell my community in northeast Florida when I was sheriff, I do not want to be the best first responder to an active shooter event. I want to prevent that occurrence before it happens, and that is the goal of the STOP School Violence Act.

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