{"id":416196,"date":"2021-12-03T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=379332"},"modified":"2021-12-03T11:00:21","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T11:00:21","slug":"after-michigan-shooting-democrats-weigh-competing-approaches-to-school-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/12\/03\/after-michigan-shooting-democrats-weigh-competing-approaches-to-school-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"After Michigan Shooting, Democrats Weigh Competing Approaches to School Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
On Tuesday,<\/u> in a suburb of Detroit, a 15-year-old boy brought his father\u2019s semi-automatic handgun to school and shot\u00a011 fellow students, killing at least four. It was the latest example of a problem that has become endemic in the United States: According to NBC News\u2019s school shooting tracker<\/a>, it was the third school shooting this year; the 14th since the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; and at least the 46th since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.<\/p>\n As pressure mounts again for action and advocates face familiar opposition from Republicans to gun control, a quieter battle has been brewing between groups on the Democratic side of the aisle, some of which support measures that could increase the role of law enforcement agencies in schools and\u00a0others that say we need greater focus on dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline. Both camps include parent groups, pitting the parents of school shooting victims against those who have seen their children undergo the harms of chronic overpolicing.<\/p>\n One group of grieving parents has become something of a legislative powerhouse. Organizing under the banner of Stand With Parkland and representing parents of the shooting victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, they have successfully pushed for a number of policy changes<\/a> to school safety both in Florida and nationwide, including\u00a0a bill<\/a> to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and a bill<\/a> to fund investments in school security training.<\/p>\n On the heels of these victories, the Parkland parents have turned their attention to several other pieces of legislation winding their way through Congress, holding more than a dozen meetings<\/a> with lawmakers in\u00a0Washington, D.C., last month. These include the Luke and Alex School Safety Act<\/a> (named for two of the students who died in the Parkland massacre), or LASSA, which would codify a federal clearinghouse<\/a>\u00a0to outline school security recommendations, and the EAGLES Act<\/a> (named for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school mascot), which would establish a new program focused on violence prevention in schools at the National Threat Assessment Center, a division of the U.S. Secret Service.<\/p>\n While Stand With Parkland hails both LASSA and the EAGLES Act as critical, proactive safety measures, coalitions of hundreds of civil rights, disability rights, and privacy groups have been working hard to stop those bills from becoming law. In a series<\/a> of\u00a0letters<\/a> sent to Congress over the past year, advocates have criticized the bills for entrenching school safety with law enforcement and for their embrace of threat assessment<\/a>, a violence prevention strategy pioneered by the Secret Service to protect the president and other public officials.<\/p>\n\n In an October letter, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which represents more than 220 national groups, wrote to lawmakers that \u201cRelying on threat assessment systems, as outlined in the EAGLES Act, would be misguided, detrimental, and wasteful.\u201d<\/p>\n Stand With Parkland parents are familiar with the legislative objections raised by civil rights advocates, but they have not engaged with these critics directly. \u201cWe have not met with those coalitions, but we are aware of the concerns,\u201d said Tony Montalto, the group\u2019s president, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina died in the shooting. \u201cThe idea of identifying someone in crisis or in need is to connect them with the resources they need. It\u2019s not designed to punish, it\u2019s not designed to incarcerate, but to proactively offer students individualized support before they turn to violence.\u201d<\/p>\n One academic researcher and threat assessment proponent went so far as to compare the civil rights groups to anti-vaccine advocates, saying that their objections \u201care causing harm to many children by undermining a safe and effective practice that protects them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n